ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A veteran driver had to kill his dog after it was mauled by a moose shortly after the start of this year’s Iditarod, race officials announced Monday.
Dallas Seavey reported to Iditarod Trail Sled Sled Race officials early Monday morning that he was forced to shoot the moose in self-defense.
A statement from the race said this happened “after the elk became entangled with dogs and mushers.”
Seavey said he won five races, tied for the most in Iditarod history, and urged officials to keep elk out of the way.
“It fell on my sled and was sprawled out on the road,” Seavey told the Iditarod Insider television crew. “We did our best to remove the internal organs, but it was in an ugly state.”
Seavey, who turned 37 on Monday, is not the first musher to have had to kill a moose on the Iditarod. In 1985, the late Susan Butcher led a race using an ax and a parka to ward off a moose, killing two of his dogs and injuring 13 others. Another musher came and killed the elk.
Butcher had to withdraw from that race, but went on to win four Iditarods. She died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 51.
This year’s race started Sunday afternoon in Willow, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Anchorage. Seavey encountered the moose just before 2 a.m. Monday, 14 miles (22 kilometers) outside the race checkpoint in Skwentna, on his way to the next checkpoint in the Finger Lakes, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away.
Seavey arrived in the Finger Lakes late Monday, where he dropped off a dog injured in an encounter with a moose. The dog was airlifted to Anchorage, where she was being examined by a veterinarian.
Alaska State Troopers were notified of the elk carcass, and race officials said every effort was being made to recover the meat.
Race rules state that if a large game animal such as elk, caribou or buffalo is killed in defense of life or property, mushers must remove the animal’s internal organs and report it to race officials at the next checkpoint. It is stipulated that The rules state that subsequent mushers must help gut the animal as much as possible.
In a statement from the Iditarod, new race marshal Warren Palfrey said they would continue to gather information because the encounter involved regulations.
Musher Paige Drobny confirmed to race officials that when she arrived at the Finger Lakes on Monday, the elk was dead in the middle of the road.
“Yeah, it’s like, ‘middle of the road,’ like my team has crossed it over and over again,” she said.
Seavey wasn’t the first musher to encounter a moose during a race.
Race leader Jesse Holmes, a contestant on National Geographic’s reality show “Life Below Zero,” which depicts life in rural Alaska, encountered the moose between the two checkpoints, but was wondering if it was the same moose. is unknown.
“I had to hit the moose in the nose,” he told the camera crew, but gave no other details.
The 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) race across Alaska will conclude sometime next week when the winning musher steps off the ice of the Bering Sea and passes beneath the finish line of Nome’s rugged arch.
