Moose Garden
Moose Garden is a tourism -oriented company in Orrviken in the Swedish municipality of Östersund in the Jämtland province , which operates a farm with an adjoining enclosure for viewing moose and sells natural products. The site is located 13 kilometers southwest of the city of Östersund on a hill above Lake Storsjön and covers an area of around 15 hectares .
history
In autumn 1997 the project started with the rearing of the two elk calves Ludde and Ronja, whose mothers were killed in accidents. At that time the area was still in a different location and was expanded to around five hectares in the summer of 1998. In the following spring the first calf Elvira was born. In the same year, a process was developed to produce paper from elk excrement - a 100 percent environmentally friendly product, the manufacture of which is considered unique by hand.
Two years after the founding, a farm with buildings from the 18th century and a larger enclosure for the animals was acquired in autumn 1999. The landscape that has been used up to the present time includes arable and forest areas, a mountain, two streams and a dam. With the spatial expansion the prerequisite was created to be able to accommodate visitors for a longer period of time.
2004 originated in Hornöberget ( High Coast ) and Duved ( Jämtland County ) more stores in Sweden. A similar facility called Łosiowa Dolina was also opened in Poland south of Gdansk in 2006 .
Moose Garden gained notoriety by visiting prominent athletes on the occasion of winter sports events in nearby Östersund. In mid-2008, a newborn female calf was named Neuner in honor of the successful German biathlete Magdalena Neuner , who visited the elk farm with her teammates during the 2008 Biathlon World Championships . In May 2011 and 2012, the cow elk became the mother of two young animals each.
Relatives and acquaintances of the owner as well as regular guests also act as godparents for the naming. In order to regulate the population, animals are sometimes sold to other parks or reserves.
Products and services
During the summer months from June to August there are guided tours for a fee three times a day. The animals can be observed, photographed, petted and fed up close. Two webcams (called Moose Cams ) transmit live images from the enclosure around the clock on the Internet. Advance booking is required outside the holiday season. Small wooden houses are available as accommodation for overnight guests. The elk farm also serves as a conference venue.
In the reception building there is a café and a souvenir shop , in which articles in the symbol of the elk are for sale - in addition to mostly artisanal products, elk cheese, made from extremely fatty elk milk, and elk paper. The latter is one of the most unusual representatives of the entire range of products. The moose eat brushwood and forest waste, so that their excrement later contains cellulose with traces of wood fibers. After refining the raw material, a thin, light brown paper is created that smells slightly of tree bark. The raw material is then processed into writing paper, business cards, postcards, menus, souvenir banknotes in different currencies and other products.
For smartphones own was Moose Garden - App developed.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the edge - baby moose “Neuner”. Biathlon-online, June 13, 2008, accessed October 21, 2014 .
Coordinates: 63 ° 6 ′ 16 ″ N , 14 ° 26 ′ 8 ″ E