ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s annual Iditarod dog sled race ended with a victory for the ages: One of the biggest names in the sport came from behind after a moose attack to win the grueling, dayslong contest for an unprecedented sixth time.
But Dallas Seavey’s record-setting win late Tuesday was overshadowed by the deaths of three dogs in this year’s storied endurance race across the Alaska wilderness, and renewed calls from an animal rights group to stop the race. A fourth dog, one of Seavey’s, was severely injured by a moose on the trail.
Seavey, 37, finished the 51st Iditarod in 9 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes and 8 seconds and won just over $55,000 for first place. As he neared the finish line, he jumped off his sled and ran with his dogs, pumping his fists. After he reached the finish line, he hugged each dog on his team — and they gave him sloppy dog kisses as they sat on the winner’s podium.
“This one was supposed to be hard,” Seavey told the crowd. “It had to be special, it had to be more than just a normal Iditarod, and for me, it was.”
The Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race takes human-and-dog teams across 1,000 miles of wilderness on a trail that traverses two mountain ranges, the Yukon River and a slice of the frozen Bering Sea before ending in the Gold Rush town of Nome just south of the Arctic Circle.
But the deaths of the dogs on three separate teams, two led by rookie mushers and a third in his second Iditarod, cast a pall over the race as the Iditarod ended a five-year streak without a dog death. Five dogs also died and eight were injured in collisions with snow machines during training before the race on shared-use trails.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the loudest critic of the Iditarod, called for officials to end the contest once and for all.
“The Iditarod is the shame of Alaska,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement. “How many more dogs need to die before this stops? Dogs’ lives are…
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