Iditarod 2018 Kicks Off In Anchorage Amid Controversy
A ceremonial 11-mile leg of the 2018 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race began Saturday in Anchorage, Alaska, with 67 mushers racing through the city. The official 1,000-mile race to Nome will start today in Willow, about 80 miles north of Anchorage.
Mushers in the 2018 Iditarod expect relatively good conditions this year on the trail. The annual sled dog race will cross mountain ranges, the Yukon River, and regions along the Bering Sea coast. At the start line in Anchorage, hundreds of people came out, including U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, to pet the dogs and meet the mushers.
While the race does have a strong following and remains popular, it has some problems to overcome. Some of the issues have people questioning the ethics and integrity of the annual event.
Citing dog mistreatment, animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) gave race organizers significant trouble yesterday. Protestors, holding signs accusing mushers of cruelty, set up mock graves of dogs that died either during last year’s race or immediately thereafter.
“If the human participants want to race to Nome, have at it,” said PETA spokeswoman Colleen O’Brien, as reported by ABC News. “But don’t force these dogs to run until their paws are bloody and they die on the trail.”
PETA plans further protests at the start line in Willow today and at the finish line in Nome at the conclusion of the 2018 Iditarod. Since the race’s beginning, the animal rights organization claims more than 150 dogs have died because of their participation. Race organizers disagree with that number.
Wells Fargo, a major financial backer of past races, recently pulled its sponsorship, bringing the winning prize money from $750,000 to $500,000. Reuters reports that Iditarod officials blame the protestors for the company’s unexpected withdrawal.
Also casting a dark shadow on the 2018 Iditarod race is a dog doping scandal revealed by officials in October. Per the governing board of the Iditarod race, four dogs owned by musher Dallas Seavey, the second-place winner last year, tested positive for the opioid painkiller tramadol.
Race officials previously banned the substance, but Seavey was not disciplined because there was no proof he gave the drug to the dogs. However, banned substance rules have since changed to hold mushers directly responsible for any drug test results that reveal a banned substance in a dog’s system.
Due to this scandal and criticism from PETA, Seavey is not participating in the 2018 Iditarod. He will be in Norway racing his team in a different dog sled race set to begin on March 9.
Regardless of the recent problems, Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley is confident the race will continue into the future.
“There’s always going to be an Iditarod. I consider this more of a growing process than anything else.”
Even with the controversies surrounding the 2018 Iditarod, Jeff King, a four-time winner of the annual event, is confident the “last great race” will continue for years to come. He is certain he and many other mushers will never stop running the race and remains committed to the annual tradition.
