Top 2024 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race contender Dallas Seavey shot and killed a moose to defend himself and his dog team early Monday about 100 miles into the 1,000-mile race, officials said.
Seavey’s team was about 14 miles past the Skwentna checkpoint when the moose “became entangled with the dogs and the musher on the trail,” according to a statement from the Iditarod. Seavey shot the moose in self-defense and notified race officials at about 1:45 a.m. Monday, the statement says.
When he arrived at the Finger Lake checkpoint at about 8 a.m. Seavey was forced to drop a dog that had been injured in the encounter with the moose, the statement says. Seavey’s kennel identified the dog as Faloo. Race officials said the dog was flown to Anchorage and was in the care of veterinarians.
Race rules allow Iditarod mushers to carry firearms for protection from large animals like moose, but they must stop to gut any big game animal they shoot so it can be salvaged. The rules also say that any mushers who come upon a fellow competitor in the process of gutting a game animal must stop and help, and they’re not allowed to pass until the musher who killed the animal has continued on the trail.
Seavey spoke about the early morning incident to the Iditarod Insider crew in Finger Lake.
“I gutted it the best I could, but it was ugly,” he said.
Race Marshal Warren Palfrey said in the statement that efforts had been underway to salvage the moose meat.
Another Iditarod veteran, Jessie Holmes, had mushed through the same section of trail ahead of Seavey and told the Insider he had also seen an angry moose, possibly the same animal.
“I had to punch a moose in the nose out there,” he said. “Oh my gosh.”
Fellow race veteran Paige Drobny saw the moose up close after it was shot, and so did mushers behind her on the trail.
“It’s dead in the middle of the trail,” Drobny told the Insider. “Like my team went up and over it.”
Gabe Dunham’s dog team hit it, too.
“There happened to be a dead moose in the trail, that kind of flipped the sled,” she told the Insider. “I did laugh and think, ‘Man, even when they’re dead they’re still getting me.’”
Bailey Vitello described it as “the experience of a lifetime.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever ran a 16-dog team over a moose, so that was kind of interesting,” he told the Insider. “It was an experience, you know, that’s what Iditarod is all about, is having experiences. And that was a cool one to say I did. So check that one off the bucket list — don’t know if I want to do it again, but it was cool.”
He said the moose carcass was around a corner, and he had to go over it because if he tried to stop, he worried his team would try to eat it..
Palfrey, the race marshal, said in the statement that he would continue to gather information about the incident.
By late Monday afternoon, Seavey and his 15-dog team had continued down the trail, and were just beyond the Rainy Pass checkpoint at race mile 153.
