Evidently Dallas Seavey shot a moose. There's been a few different accounts on the various blogs of mushers. Jessie Holmes had an earlier encounter which he claims to have, "Punched it in the nose." Dallas, "Dispatched" it, field dressed it in which he may have had the help of other mushers and reported it to officials. Unfortunately one of his dogs was injured and has been returned to Anchorage.

Yet another example of why the Iditarod is unlike any other race on earth.

https://craigmedred.news/2024/.../iditarod-collision/

Iditarod collision
BY CRAIGMEDRED ON MARCH 4, 2024 • ( 2 COMMENTS )
An Alaska moose with the hair on its back up and looking for a fight/Craig Medred photo

Moose dead, one dog seriously injured

The 2024 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has only just begun, and it has suffered its first casualty in a run-in that left a dog seriously injured.

Dead is a moose that tried to claim the Iditarod Trail as its own. On its way to a veterinary care center is a dog from the team of four-time Iditarod champ Dallas Seavey from Talkeetna.

“One of Dallas’ dogs was seriously injured and will be returned from Finger Lake,” Dallas’s father, Mitch, posted on the Facebook page of the Robinson Racing Kennel this morning.

It had earlier been reported there that Wally Robinson from Nenana and Jessie Holmes from Brushkana Creek had problems on the trail between Skwentna, a small community of just off the Yentna River north of Anchorage, and Finger Lake, where there is an Iditarod checkpoint at the Winterlake Lodge.

Seavey’s Facebook page had at first made light of the incident, reporting that “as mushers make their way to Finger Lake, intriguing reports about the trail have begun to circulate. While we eagerly await updates on Dallas’s team, it’s worth noting that Jessie Holmes was the first to reach the FL checkpoint, and he had quite the tale to tell.

“Amidst the rugged terrain, Holmes encountered a moose, boldly declaring that he ‘punched him in the nose!’ Describing the trail as ‘rougher than hell for 10 miles,’ Holmes’s account offers insight into the challenges ahead for subsequent teams. Paige Drobny is the third musher to arrive, added to the narrative, revealing that the moose had met an unfortunate end on the trail. With her team navigating up and over the fallen obstacle, it’s clear that the trail presents unique obstacles for all competitors.”

The terrain between Skwentna and Finger Lake is not rugged; it is relatively flat and the trail winds through many open muskegs where mushers can see far ahead. But the trail also darts into some willow thickets and patches of woods where it is easy to surprise a moose, which is apparently what happened with Holmes, Robinson and finally Dallas, who couldn’t avoid the animal and was forced to shot and kill it.

The Robinson page provided this account:

“Last night, in the dark, on a trail with a lot of hills, curving through the trees, Wally and the dogs ran over a moose! It was at the bottom of a hill and they bounced right over it. Earlier, Jesse had punched it in the nose when it was kicking at his dogs. Dallas came along next and the moose attacked.

“Dallas did the only thing he could do and shot the moose to defend himself and his dogs. He said it dropped on his sled so it wasn’t a long shot! The rules say the animal must be cared for so Dallas had the very unenviable task of gutting a moose in the middle of his run. A reminder of how wild and remote the country they are traveling is and how quickly a musher has to respond to danger!”

The author of the post is to be excused for a faulty description of the terrain becuase many reporting on the Iditarod today, including too many in the legacy media, have never been on the trail, but as noted above the trail does wind into patches of forest or willows where it is easy to suprise a moose, and moose are now as common in the area as they were during an earlier period in Iditarod history.

Cycles of nature

Upon arrival in Finger Lake in the 1980s, the now late Susan Butcher, a dominate Iditarod player in those years, would invariably start complaining about all the “mooseholes” punched in the trail in from Skwentna – holes which can lead to dogs suffering shoulder or leg injuries or in some conditions breaking a leg.

Moose numbers in the area were then high. They later dropped precipitiously and by the start of the new millenium, mooseholes – along with the moose that create them – largely ceased to be a problem.

Then, in the 2010s, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game began predator control programs in the area to reduce the numbers of bears and wolves.

As predator numbers went down, the moose population grew and subsequently – especially in winters such as this with deep snow – the animals again became an issue for mushers, snowmachine riders, fat-tired cyclists, skiers and even walkers on the trail north from Skwentna for about 70 miles to Puntilla Lake on the south slope of the Alaska Range.

When the snow is deep, moose simply do not want to get off the firmly packed trail to wallow around in belly deep snow.

In 2020, the bikes of several fat-tired cyclists were smashed as they made their way north along the trial during the Iditarod Trail Invitational and 65-year-old Tab Ballentine barely escaped being stomped by a moose that charged him three times.

But these moose dangers are not unique to the Iditarod Trail.

In 2022, Holmes got so worried about moose being a danger on his Iditarod training trails along the Denali Highway that he shot at least four of them. It is legal in Alaska to shoot big game animals in defense of life and property, but Holmes was cited for failing to report some of the shootings.

The latest shooting clearly meets the requirements for a legitimate defense of life and property (DLP) shooting in Alaska, and it appears from the looks of the time it took Dallas to go from Skwentna to Finger Lake – his run was several hours longer than that of any of the other top teams – that he followed Iditarod protocol for how to handle a moose shooting.

Race rules stipulate that “in the event that an edible big game animal, i.e., moose,
caribou, buffalo, is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report the incident to a race official at the next checkpoint. Following teams must help gut the animal when possible. No teams may pass until the animal has been gutted and the musher killing the animal has proceeded.”

The string of teams following close behind Seavey coming into the Finger Lake checkpoint would indicate that a bunch of other mushers followed the rules as well and that Seavey might have gotten some help in cleaning up the kill. The state usually donates the meat of DLP-killed to those in need.

As of this writing, Iditarod has yet to respond to a request for information about what happened.

I've watched Jesse Holmes on "Life Below Zero " for a couple of years now. He's a serious outdoor survivalist/dog breeder and musher. I don't have a hard time believing that he punched a moose in the face. LOL

Crazy. My son is up there right now, said he got to see some of the teams start.

quote:

The string of teams following close behind Seavey coming into the Finger Lake checkpoint would indicate that a bunch of other mushers followed the rules as well and that Seavey might have gotten some help in cleaning up the kill. The state usually donates the meat of DLP-killed to those in need.

That part right there is pretty cool, and a big part of what I love about Alaska. Even in the middle of what is pretty much the "super bowl" of local athletics, competitors are taking the time to do it right, be responsible with local resources, and help each other out.

Oh, and punching a moose in the face is undeniably badass .

I know a hunter who kicked a bear in the head, and I thought that was pretty badass. Punching a moose? Level up!