Prepare to be mesmerized by a sea of moving reindeer.
Norway is home to quite the large reindeer population. Interestingly enough, the country boasts a population of over 250,000 reindeer. The catch? Only about 25,000 of those live out in the wild. The rest are domesticated reindeer, and about 185,000 are located in the county of Finnmark alone.
It appears that the reindeer in this video below are wild. Though there’s an outside chance they are some form of domesticated, considering it looks like there are some workers (on snowmobiles) helping to move the herd in a certain direction. It’s certainly an organized effort to get these reindeer from point A to point B.
They even shut down the road for it.
Regardless of if these reindeer are domesticated or wild, seeing a big herd of reindeer running together in sync can truly be a spectacle. Parts of this video don’t even look real as it’s difficult to determine where one reindeer stops and another one starts. It’s as if they are all one moving sea of animal, and the tide just so happens to be taking them across this main, snow-lined road in Norway.
The herd migration seems like it could go on forever as more and more reindeer just keeping coming. I think I can speak for everyone when I say I’d rather be held up in traffic caused by something like this over regular, car-related traffic issues any day of the week.
So go ahead and press play on this clip, then sit back and relax as the multitude of reindeer go dashing through the snow and onto the flat roadway while the cars wait off in the distance. I don’t know why it’s relaxing, but it just is:
“In Norway, we stop traffic for Reindeer to cross safely.”
Rather serene scene, if you ask me.
The only thing that’s better than that video of the beautiful, graceful creatures high-hoofing it through the snow and crossing the road? The trend that the caption for the clip accidentally started. They were just saying, “In Norway, we care enough for our animals to bring traffic to a halt.” Nothing wrong with that message, right?
Well… social media users kept to that format, inserted where they are and what they do for animals (among other creatures), and filled the reply section of the post with these comical responses:
“In Canada, we have moose. We stop because not only are they magnificent creatures to look at but because if a moose wants to occupy a road, it damn well ain’t moving till it’s good and ready.”
“In Indiana, we stop for squirrels.”
“In Denmark. traffic stops for ducks and ducklings crossing.”
“In Monterey, we stop for geese to cross the highway… they own the road.”
“In Alberta, we do that for cows, deer, elk, moose, partridge, ducks, geese, children, joggers…”
I was trying to think of my own clever example… I guess I’d go with, “In Nashville, we unfortunately have to stop for pedal taverns and party buses.”