Halltorp
Huge trees and rare beetles
Halltorp Nature Reserve hosts one of northern Europe’s most valuable hardwood forests and the area has one of the country’s richest selections of species. The large old oak trees in the reserve provide habitats for our three largest beetles – the great Capricorn beetle, the stag beetle and the hermit beetle.
Old forest meadows
The Halltorp pasture (Halltorps hage) represents the southern part of a more or less coherent deciduous forest belt stretching to Borgholm. Like many other groves on Öland, Halltorp has been a wooded meadow. Winter fodder was harvested for cattle here – with both grass and leaves being collected. Meadow management ceased at the beginning of the 1900s and the land became more wild. Today, much of the reserve has been cleared and is grazed again.
Huge oaks
There were a large number of oaks around Halltorp until the early 1900s. However, copious logging took place in 1918 and around a thousand old oak trees were cut down. Today, large stumps remind us of this event. Around thirty large oak trees were left in place and it is these that today constitute the Halltorp pasture, which is the only place in the Nordic countries in which the great Capricorn beetle can definitely be found.
Rare beetle
The great Capricorn beetle’s larvae develop over six years only in sunlit old and very large oaks. In the wood of the oak trees one can see oval exit holes which the larvae have gnawed. One of today’s major nature conservation challenges is to try to provide replacement trees for the old dying oak giants and the biggest threat is the gap in age between the old and young oaks. The question is whether we will manage to develop sufficiently large replacement oaks in order to ensure that the great Capricorn beetle survives in the area.
Facts:
Size: 198 ha, (489 acres), of which 56 ha, (138 acres) is water-covered
Year of creation: 1979
Purpose: To preserve a particularly valuable section of the deciduous forest’s mosaic, flora and fauna along the coast of Öland. To facilitate the public’s experience of the area. The area is part of Natura 2000, the EU’s ecological network of protected areas.
Directions/Location:
Around eight kilometres north of Glömminge, turn off at the sign for Halltorps hage and continue for just over a kilometre. Parking is available at Ekerumsbadet and on route 136. The reserve has several different walking trails, one of which is also suitable for disabled people.
GPS coordinates to the parking lot WGS 84 decimal (lat, long): 56.79447 , 16.56657
Map: Naturcentrum AB, Stenungsund.
Download: the County administrative boards brochure over (in Swedish only) (1,5 MB): Halltorp
Download: the entire brochure (in Swedish only) (19 MB): Utflyktsguide Öland
© Lantmäteriverket, Ur Geografiska Sverigedata, översiktskartan Dnr. 106-2004/188”
Source: County Administrative Board, Kalmar
Translation: Visitoland.com