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El cortello dos lobos

Lubián, Sanabria, Zamora

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 2 Nature · 2 Curiosities

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El cortello dos lobos

Curiosity · Lubián, Sanabria, Zamora

El Cortello dos Lobos, in Lubián, is a stone ethnological complex built as a trap to capture wolves alive: the animal would enter, drawn by bait, and find itself shut in, unable to leap the wall. Lubián, like the rest of the Sanabria comarca, was wolf country par excellence, and its people devised various kinds of such traps over the course of history, among them the chorco, the cerrado lobero and the nevera. The lack of documentation and its folk character leave the origin of the cortello uncertain; it is thought to be several centuries old, though it is not known whether it was built by local people themselves or by transhumant shepherds. It is now restored, though it has been out of use since the mid-20th century.

Photo: Vanbasten 23 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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