Traffic-stopping Idaho elk herd turns heads in viral video

HAILEY, Idaho, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- A herd of elk became unlikely viral celebrities when they were filmed holding up traffic while parading across a busy Idaho road.

A video recorded by resident Toni Marcroft and posted to Facebook by the city of Hailey, Idaho, shows a line of cars stopped on Highway 75 while a herd of elk make their way across the road in single file.

Officials said they were shocked when the video, posted Dec. 19, racked up more than 2.2 million views in a single week.

"It's quite amazing what happened," Jeff Bacon, executive director of the Hailey Chamber of Commerce, told KMVT/KSVT. "This is not unusual for us. We put videos like this up or photos like this up if there's things going on over the Wood River Valley, but this one went viral. It just happened to be of a traffic jam caused by a few elk crossing the road. But they were all bucks and right around the Christmas time probably wasn't a bad time to post this up. A lot of people saying hey, it looks like Santa's reindeer and so we were having some fun with that."