It’s time to turn on your TV for some moose spotting!
On Tuesday, April 15, millions of viewers turned on their TVs to watch “The Great Moose Migration,” a Swedish 20-day, 24-hour annual livestream capturing moose migrating across the Ångerman River, according to The Associated Press.
The broadcast is put on by the Sweden national public broadcaster SVT and gives viewers nonstop footage from remote cameras placed around the river and forest in northern Sweden, according to ABC.
In a video shared on X by AP, Johan Erlag, the project manager at SVT, explains that this “slow TV” format is exactly what people enjoy about the livestream.
“The slow TV concept and the meditative feeling of the program is actually what people like because everyone is so stressed today, with social media and the way we produce everything we do in our life,” Erlag said. “And this is the total opposite of that.”
Annette Hill, a university professor, also shares in the video that she believes that the genre of slow TV will stick around because it’s “natural and authentic.”
The broadcast has continued to build a loyal fanbase since its creation in 2019, according to BBC.
Today its Facebook fan page has over 77,000 members sharing “memorable moments, emotional reactions to the broadcast and their shared fascination of the migration,” the article said.
One fan of the “slow TV” phenomenon, Ulla Malmgren, made sure to have coffee and meals ready so she wouldn’t have to miss a single moment, according to AP.
“Sleep? Forget it. I don’t sleep,” Malmgren told AP.
Cait Borjesson, another fan, has made watching the livestream an annual tradition since she came across it during the COVID-19 Pandemic. She said that she has had her TV on for 16 hours straight since it started on Tuesday, per BBC.
“It’s unbelievably relaxing,” she told BBC. “There’s the natural sounds of birds, the wind, the trees. It gives you a sense that you’re in nature even if you’re not.”
Borjesson continued that watching the stream has helped her anxiety and panic attacks, as it is “like therapy.”
Where can I watch ‘The Great Moose Migration’?
The livestream can be found on the SVT Play website with moose sightings marked on the streams timeline, reported ABC.
While the moose sightings spread out, the program shares the sights and sounds of the serene nature from the various camera angles.
“I feel relaxed, but at the same time I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s a moose. Oh, what if there’s a moose? I can’t go to the toilet!’” said 20-year-old William Garp Liljefors, according to AP.
The footage is made up of the views from 26 remote cameras, seven night cameras and a drone all stitched together.
Where is the moose migration?
According to ABC, the moose were GPS-tagged in 2022 as part of an experiment. The information showed that the mammals started south of Kullberg at the beginning of that year’s spring.
During the summer, dozens of the moose began to move north toward the grazing pastures before heading back down south in October.
“Historically, this migration has been going on since the ice age,” said Goran Ericsson, dean of the faculty of forest sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the broadcast’s science adviser, per BBC. “During spring and summer, moose are more evenly spread out in the landscape.”
How many moose live in Sweden?
According to BBC, about 300,000 moose call the Swedish woodlands home and are called “King of the Forest” in the country.
While the animals are called moose in North America, they are called elk in Europe.