Iditarod opens with moose attack, field dressing, and a carcass crash

The Iditarod is a sports event unlike anything else. Storming across the frozen Alaskan Tundra on a dog sled isn’t for the feint of heart, and that’s before we get to the potential need to kill an attacking moose.

That’s precisely what happened shortly following the beginning of the Iditarod on Monday. Legendary musher Dallas Seavey, a five-time Iditarod winner, informed officials that he was forced to kill a moose with a handgun after it attacked one of his dogs.

This came after another musher claimed he had to fight off a moose, punching it in the nose shortly before the shooting took place. It’s believed that the rogue moose was one in the same.

It’s unusual for moose to attack competitors, but there are rules in the book for what a musher has to do if they kill a moose during the course of the Iditarod — because of course there are.

So after rapidly field dressing the deer mid-race, the carcass was left on the track. Seavey said he told race officials about the dead moose, and implored them to move the carcass — but evidently they didn’t in time, because a third musher ran over the dead moose.

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.

“Yeah, like my team went up and over it, like it’s that ‘in the middle of the trail,’” she said.

Nobody was injured in the incident, and the race is now continuing. Seavey’s dog, who was attacked by the moose is being treated by veterinarians, but the violent moose remains dead.