Will Sweden's Gävle Goat survive this year?

I started paying attention to this thing a few years back. Sometimes it makes it; sometimes it doesn't.

Will Sweden's Gävle Goat survive this year?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The town of Gävle, Sweden, is famous for Gevalia coffee. And for erecting a 13-metre-tall straw goat to celebrate Christmas. Every year, arsonists try to burn the goat down -- and they succeed about fifty per cent of the time. But this year, officials are determined to keep the Gävlebocken from being torched. So they've moved the city's central taxi stand so that it surrounds the goat, in the hope that it will attract more people to the area at night, when arsonists traditionally strike.

However, Johan Adolfsson, the city's spokesperson, acknowledges there are risks involved with attracting more people. "Often the people there late at night are drunk," he tells As It Happens host Carol Off. "So it might be genius, or it might be a disaster."

A smaller goat built by science students, dubbed the "baby brother" of the Gävlebocken, has already been removed, he says. It wasn't torched, but it was knocked over, and they couldn't get it standing upright again.

Over the years, arsonists have torched it with burning arrows and Zippo lighters. There was once a plot to try to steal the goat using a helicopter. ... But so far this year, the giant Gävlebocken, which even updates followers through its own twitter account, is still standing. People can also check in on the Gävlebocken via its live webcam.