The Swedish kings Magnus Eriksson and Christopher of Bavaria decreed wolf hunting a civic duty, with only priests, parish clerks and landless women exempted. Sweden's first wolf bounty was opened in 1647. The bounties remained in force in the new laws of the Kingdom of Sweden from 1734. Hundreds of Sami killed wolves in order to protect their reindeer herds. In the 1960s, wolf numbers rapidly declined with the onset of snow mobiles used for hunting. Sweden's last wolf was killed in 1966, after which, the species was declared legally protected and eventually recolonized the area. Norway followed a similar pattern as Sweden, with its last wolf being killed in 1976, before becoming being protected and eventually recolonizing the area. In the Lithuanian SSR, the hunting of wolves was formally permitted all year long with killing cubs in their dens and payment of monetary rewards. The number of wolves in those times in Lithuania fell to about 20–40 individuals. In Communist Romania, up to 2,800 wolves were killed between 1955 and 1965. During the reign of Nicolae Ceauşescu, a reward equal to a quarter of a month's pay was offered to rangers killing wolf cubs. Full-grown wolves killed by any method at all resulted in as much as a half-month's pay. In Czarist Russia, before the emancipation reform of 1861, wolf hunting was done solely by authorized firearm holders, usually police, soldiers, rich landowners or nobles. Upon learning of the frequency of attacks on livestock and humans, the Ministry of the Interior sent agents to Western Europe in order to learn how the people there dealt with wolf problems. Upon returning, the Ministry of the Interior developed a plan in 1846 to deal with wolves involving the opening of wolf bounties and appointment of government hunters. Each hunter was given jurisdiction to hunt in one district, with more than one for large areas. Hunters were given 3 rubles for each male wolf killed and 1.5 for each cub, with a tail presented as proof. Each hunter would receive an annual salary of 60 rubles a year, provided he killed 15 adults and 30 cubs a year. Peasant hunters, however, were rarely rewarded, because of corrupt bureaucrats stealing the money. In 1858, after paying the equivalent of $1,250,000 for over a million wolves in Central Russia, officials became suspicious, and discovered that some hunters bought wolf pelts for low prices, cut