The non-human turn in the post-Anthropocentric humanities has rendered a flora of imaginaries of how to understand non-human animals as legal agents. These streams of research are often focused on the entanglement of law and non-human animals, yet they sometimes seem to lack an account for the minor role that acts of the physical animal bodies play within networks of other materialities, not least human discourses, that co-shape their actions and their very bodies. Inspired by Jane Bennet’s concept distributed agency I therefore try to trace the legal agency of the wolves in Sweden through their entanglements with bodies such as laws, judgements, and perceptions of a threat to a rural lifestyle. 

When a wolf acts, it is always already a product of politics and law. The wolves in Sweden were eradicated in the late 1960s and reappeared a couple of decades later due to shifts in the human society, not least through changes in laws and public opinion. It is a controversial animal, perceived by its opponent as imposed by urban establishments in Stockholm and Brussels who themselves never needs to live close to the wolves. This contributes to the low tolerance for wolves in certain areas and the perceived illegitimacy of the wolf management, which in turn results in illegal hunting being the most common cause of death for wolves.

Building upon my recently published thesis, Entangled Law, I in this paper picture the rhizomes of materialities which the physical bodies of the wolves entangle with when they act. Through these materialities, the wolves co-produce affects in the landscape which in turn contributes to shape new legal acts, how laws are perceived as well as the effect of them. This better situates the wolves as a legal actor within the legal system and is a crucial perspective in the strive for more sustainable relations with the non-humans.