Dallas Seavy says shooting was in self-defenseOne dog injured in encounter near start of race<\/p>\n
A veteran musher had to kill a moose after it injured his dog shortly after the start of this year\u2019s Iditarod, race officials said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Dallas Seavey informed the officials with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race early Monday morning that he was forced to shoot the moose with a handgun in self-defense.<\/p>\n
This came \u201cafter the moose became entangled with the dogs and the musher,\u201d a statement from the race said.<\/p>\n
Seavey, who is tied for the most Iditarod wins ever at five, said he urged officials to get the moose off the trail.
\u201cIt fell on my sled, it was sprawled on the trail,\u201d Seavey told an Iditarod Insider television crew. \u201cI gutted it the best I could, but it was ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seavey, who turned 37 on Monday, is not the first musher to have to kill a moose during an Iditarod. In 1985, Susan Butcher was leading the race when she used her axe and a parka to fend off a moose, but it killed two of her dogs and injured 13 others. Another musher killed the moose.<\/p>\n
Butcher had to quit that race but went on to win four Iditarods. She died from leukemia in 2006 at the age of 51.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s race started on Sunday afternoon in Willow, about 75 miles north of Anchorage. Seavey encountered the moose just before 2am on Monday, 14 miles outside the race checkpoint in Skwentna, en route to the next checkpoint 50 miles away in Finger Lake.<\/p>\n
Seavey arrived in Finger Lake later on Monday, where he dropped a dog that was injured in the moose encounter. The dog was flown to Anchorage, where it was being evaluated by a veterinarian.<\/p>\n
Alaska State Troopers were informed of the dead moose, and race officials said every effort was being made to salvage the meat.<\/p>\n
Race rules state that if a big game animal like a moose, caribou or buffalo is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report it to race officials at the next checkpoint. Mushers who follow must help gut the animal when possible, the rules states.<\/p>\n
New race marshal Warren Palfrey said he would continue to gather information about the encounter as it pertains to the rules, according to the Iditarod statement.<\/p>\n
Musher Paige Drobny confirmed to race officials the moose was dead and in the middle of the trail when she arrived in Finger Lake on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, like my team went up and over it, like it\u2019s that \u2018in the middle of the trail,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Seavey wasn\u2019t the first musher to encounter a moose along that stretch of the race.<\/p>\n
Race leader Jessie Holmes, who is a cast member of the National Geographic reality TV show Life Below Zero, about life in rural Alaska, had his encounter between those two checkpoints, but it\u2019s not clear if it was the same moose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to punch a moose in the nose out there,\u201d he told a camera crew, but didn\u2019t offer other details.<\/p>\n
The 1,000-mile race across Alaska will end sometime next week when the winning musher comes off the Bering Sea ice and crosses under the burled arch finish line in Nome.<\/p>\n
Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dallas Seavy says shooting was in self-defenseOne dog injured in encounter near start of race A veteran musher had to kill a moose after it injured his dog shortly after the start of this year\u2019s Iditarod, race officials said on Monday. Dallas Seavey informed the officials with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race early Monday … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}