Updated: 15 minutes in the past Published: 1 hour in the past
Another canine died Tuesday outdoors a checkpoint in the course of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, bringing the variety of sled canine deaths on this yr’s contest as much as three.
Around 10:15 a.m., a 3-year-old male named Henry on rookie Calvin Daugherty’s workforce “collapsed on the trail roughly 10 miles before reaching the Shaktoolik checkpoint,” stated a press release from race marshal Warren Palfrey.
Palfrey stated the musher, who’s from Sterling, administered CPR however efforts to revive the canine weren’t profitable. A pathologist will conduct a necropsy to attempt to decide the canine’s explanation for dying, Palfrey stated.
Daugherty scratched at Shaktoolik simply earlier than 12:30 p.m. underneath the Iditarod’s Rule 42, race officers said. In the occasion of a canine’s dying, the rule states {that a} competitor might voluntarily scratch; be withdrawn from competitors; or be allowed to proceed underneath an exception allowed for an “unpreventable hazard,” equivalent to a moose encounter.
Two sled dogs died earlier within the practically thousand-mile race Sunday: a 2-year-old named Bog on rookie Isaac Teaford’s workforce and a 4-year-old named George on the workforce of second-year Iditarod musher Hunter Keefe. Both rivals dropped out of the race underneath the Iditarod guidelines.
The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a vocal critic of the Iditarod and aggressive canine mushing, has lengthy referred to as for the race to be dismantled over canine deaths and what it calls the inhumane remedy of dogs in long-distance mushing. PETA has additionally pushed company sponsors to drop their assist of the Iditarod.
Tracy Reiman, PETA’s govt vice chairman, stated in a press release Tuesday afternoon: “The Iditarod is the shame of Alaska. How many more dogs need to die before this stops? Dogs’ lives are worth more than this.”
The three deaths within the 2024 Iditarod are the race’s first since 2019.
In 2017, 5 dogs died in the course of the Iditarod, in keeping with the group Humane Mushingwhich tracks the incidents. That yr, three dogs collapsed on the path and died, and a fourth canine died after overheating on a airplane the Iditarod chartered to fly dogs returned at a checkpoint. Another dropped canine obtained unfastened from a handler in Anchorage after being launched from Iditarod care, and was hit and killed by a automobile.
The dying of the canine on Daugherty’s workforce Tuesday was introduced as the present race chief, five-time champion Dallas Seavey, was lower than 20 miles from the end line in Nome. He was poised to assert a sixth victory, which might make him the Iditarod’s winningest musher.
Daugherty’s departure from the race brings this yr’s variety of musher scratches to seven up to now, out of a area of 38 rivals who began the race.
This is a creating story. Check again for updates.
