Cortello dos Lobos

Cortello dos Lobos is a centuries-old stone enclosure standing just outside the village of Lubián, in the province of Zamora, Castile and León. Its name comes from the local Galician-Leonese dialect and literally means "wolf pen" — the structure was originally built as a trap for capturing live wolves, at a time when the predators posed a real threat to sheep and goats grazing in the mountains of Sanabria.

How to get there

Lubián sits in the western corner of Zamora province, close to the border with Galicia and Portugal, at the foot of the Sierra Segundera range. The village is reached directly from the A-52 motorway by taking exit 107 toward Ourense. Lubián also lies on the Camino Sanabrés, one of the branches of the Camino de Santiago connecting Castile with Galicia, so the site sees a steady trickle of pilgrims taking a short detour along the route.

A signposted footpath to the cortello begins near the town hall and the local health center in Lubián. The route forms a loop of roughly 1.5 kilometers: the first 700 meters climb directly to the enclosure, while the return follows a gentler track that is also passable by 4x4 vehicles. The walk typically takes 20 to 30 minutes and requires no special fitness beyond a short uphill stretch.

What the structure looks like

The Cortello dos Lobos forms an almost circular enclosure roughly thirty meters across. Its walls, built from local stone without any mortar, rise three to four meters high and are capped with large flat slabs that jut inward over the enclosure. The whole structure was set into a steep hillside so that, on the uphill side, the top of the wall sits level with the surrounding ground.

How the trap worked

The design relied entirely on the slope of the land. Because the upper edge of the wall matched the height of the hillside behind it, a wolf could leap straight in, drawn by the sight of easy prey — usually a lamb or goat tied up in the middle of the enclosure by local herders as bait. Once inside, though, the animal faced a tall wall topped with an inward-leaning overhang that blocked any escape back the way it came. It was a passive trap in every sense: the predator walked in on its own, lured by what it could see from higher ground.

History

Because no written records document its construction, the exact age of the Cortello dos Lobos is uncertain — estimates place it at several centuries old. It also remains unclear whether it was built by residents of Lubián itself or by transhumant shepherds, who moved their flocks seasonally between mountain and lowland pastures. The trap stayed in use until roughly the middle of the 20th century, when changes in livestock farming and growing protection of wolf populations brought this kind of hunting to an end. The site has since been restored and now stands as a piece of the region's ethnographic heritage. Similar stone wolf traps, though rare, survive elsewhere across northern Iberia — in Cantabria, Galicia, Navarre, and northern Portugal — wherever shepherding and wild predators once shared the same mountains.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Cortello dos Lobos mean? It comes from the local Galician-Leonese dialect and translates literally as "wolf pen," referring to the structure's original use as a wolf trap.

Can visitors walk to the cortello today? Yes. A signposted trail from Lubián forms a loop of about 1.5 kilometers, walkable in roughly 20 to 30 minutes.

How did the wolf trap actually work? A wolf entered from the hillside side, lured by bait tied in the center, then found itself unable to climb back out past the high overhanging wall.

When did the cortello stop being used? It fell out of use around the middle of the 20th century and has since been preserved as part of the ethnographic heritage of the Sanabria region.