Wolf trap added to history record

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The remains of a wolf trap found in a forest has been added to a database of historic sites.

It is believed the trap at Moy, near Inverness, dates from between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Wolves were lured by bait onto a carefully weighted plank above a deep pit covered with brush wood.

The trap is among the latest additions to the Highland Historic Environment Record (HER), which Highland Council recently made available online.

The wolf trap entry includes information gleaned from the Statistical Account of 1838 for the Moy and Dalarossie Parish.

Wolves were thought to have been hunted to extinction in Scotland in the 1700s.

WOLVES FACT FILE Groups such as the Wolves and Humans Foundation have called for a "serious debate" on reintroducing the animals to ScotlandThere are various claims to the killing of the last wolf in Britain, including an account it was killed by Sir Ewen of Lochiel in 1680Some historians believed the very last one was dispatched near Findhorn, Moray, in 1743 amid an outcry that it had killed two children

A carved stone by the side of the A9 near Brora claims to mark the site where the last wolf in Sutherland was killed by a man called Polson in 1700.

According to research done by Glasgow Zoo, now closed, the wolf was regarded as a common enemy.

Chieftains and royalty led hunts.

One attended by Queen Mary in 1563 employed 2,000 Highlanders and ended in the deaths of five wolves and 360 deer.

Huge swathes of forest in Perthshire, Lochaber and Argyll were systematically destroyed to deprive wolves of their habitat.

HER also has entries for early 20th Century henhouses, rusting petrol pumps and a children's playhouse in its database of more than 50,000 historic sites.

Shipwrecks, wartime anti-tank defences and graveyards are also listed.

Highland Council staff, heritage groups and members of the public have helped to compile the Highland Historic Environment Record over 20 years.