Welcome to GoatWatch, 2023, where we monitor the status of the Gavlebocken (Gavle Goat) and see whether it survives to the New Year or goes down in flames (literally). For those joining us, the Gavle Goat is a big straw goat status built at the beginning of Advent each year in Gavle, Sweden. The first year it was built, it got burned down, and thus started a tradition of people trying to destroy the Goat each year, and other people trying to defend it. Note: Despite it being a tradition, trying to destroy the Goat is vandalism and thus is illegal. Hasn't seemed to stop anyone before, though. Here's a list of previous years' results This year there's been an interesting twist: due to weather changes, there's a lot of seeds stuck to the straw that was used to make the Goat, and now birds have started eating it! Not sure what the defending team can do about that one! Source: Twitter Updates if I remember to!
I know the pixelation is probably to avoid catching any faces in the camera, but I choose to believe that the strategy this year is nudist defense patrol
So I'm not sure what the threshold for "sufficiently eaten by birds to constitute destruction" is, but you can definitely see its ribs now
I'd say that the skeleton being exposed would discourage people from having sex in the goat, but I'm not actually sure that that's true.
