A goat farmer concerned about the status of Iceland’s cloven-hooved population brought a live goat to IKEA in Garðabær to draw attention to their plight.
DV reports that Gunnar Júlíus Helgason, a goat farmer from Vatnsleysuströnd, arrived at IKEA last Saturday with the goat in question.
“I wanted to show solidarity with the IKEA goat and bring attention to the fact that goats are endangered; there are less than 1,000 goats in the country,” he told reporters.
While IKEA’s Christmas Goat was burned to the ground last week by arsonists, the precarious position of the Icelandic goat is due, Gunnar contends, to goats being seen as a “symbol of poverty” in Iceland. Goats were often milked by the poor in the olden days, he says, leading to people being ashamed of owning goats today.
Of course, some people are in fact proud to own goats, as The Grapevine has reported. The goat is, nonetheless, an unpopular choice in livestock in Iceland. Only time will tell if Gunnar’s efforts will have a discernible effect on the situation.
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