Lawmakers pursue vet care access to ease Alaska’s chronic problems with abandoned and loose dogs

Rural Alaska has long struggled with an abundance of stray and loose dogs and high rates of dog bites, with young children as the most frequent victims. Pending state and federal legislation aims to chip away at that problem by improving access to veterinary care, currently difficult to obtain in wide swaths of Alaska. At the state level, House Bill 258 , sponsored by Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, would establish a state fund to help cover spay and neuter services. Money for the fund, intended to fill gaps in currently available care, would come from sales of specialized license plates, which other states offer , and donations. The fund would also generate its own investment income. The intent is to relieve the stresses on animal welfare, people and communities, including local shelters that are “overwhelmed by the costs of animal control and care,” Stapp wrote in a statement explaining his sponsorship of the bill. “This legislation takes a preventative, fiscally responsible approach to an issue that affects communities throughout Alaska,” the statement concludes. The bill has attracted three co-sponsors and support from the animal-care community, Alaska Veterinary Medical Association and the Alaska Municipal League, among other groups. At the federal level, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is pushing for legislation to get veterinary care included in the duties of the Indian Health Service. At present, the agency does not have the authority to pay for veterinarian care. Murkowski’s bill has three Democratic co-sponsors , from New Mexico, Hawaii and Minnesota, all states with significant Indigenous populations that are served by the IHS. It passed the Senate in December and is now pending in the House. A nearly identical measure sponsored by Murkowski and the same Democratic colleagues passed the Senate in late 2024, but it died before time ran out on that Congress. The bill has support from Native organizations — including the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. and the Navajo Nation, which is coping with problems in its tribal areas that are similar to those in Alaska. It is an approach backed by experts as part of the “ One Health ” framework that considers human, animal and environmental health as linked. “Veterinarians play an integral role in One Health because animals both impact and are impacted by people and the environment,” the American Veterinary Medical Association says on its website . Dogs are part of life in Alaska, where travel by dog sled is an aspect of Indigenous cultures. But problems caused by abandoned, stray and loose dogs are myriad. Alaska consistently has the nation’s highest rate of dog bites, according to state officials. The rate of dog-bite cases treated in hospitals has been especially high in rural areas; a 2014 epidemiology report said that rate in Southwest and northern Alaska was two to three times the national rate. Children are at particular risk. And 2009 research, albeit dated, found that Alaska had the highest per-capita rate of fatal dog maulings among all states, with a rate more than 16 times the national average. The Navajo Nation has also struggled with strays . After a 13-year-old girl was killed in a dog mauling in 2021, the tribal government made a push to boost animal control services. The tribe’s senior animal control officer estimated at the time that there were 500,000 domestic and feral dogs on the Navajo Nation and that a single pair of mating dogs could create up to 5,700 new dogs in five years. Several diseases are associated with loose dogs, notably parvovirus. Endemic in Alaska dogs, parvovirus can kill pets and, if spread to people, cause serious health problems for those who are pregnant or immunocompromised. Rabies, endemic in wild canines in Alaska, is a perennial threat, notably to sled dogs that might be attacked outdoors. Human cases have been rare in Alaska, but they are serious; rabies is always fatal to people once the virus reaches the brain. To prevent that spread, exposed people get rabies shots as quickly as possible. The risk of tick-borne diseases is increasing in Alaska as climate change enables northward tick expansion , according to state health officials. Alaskans may be under the mistaken impression that ticks are not a problem in the state and may thus underestimate their dogs’ vulnerabilities, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has warned . Feral cats can spread diseases, too. A feral cat was implicated in the first recorded fatality from borealpox , a newly discovered and highly rare disease that was initially called Alaskapox; the victim was a Kenai Peninsula man who had cared for a stray cat before dying in early 2024. There are associated mental health problems as well. In rural villages where there are limited management options, stray dogs are sometimes killed, which is “cruel and inhumane,” Christine Witzmann, a board member with Alaska Rural Veterinary Outreach Inc ., told the House Resources Committee at a Feb. 16 hearing. “It is also traumatic for the children, who suffer deep emotional scars when they witness how their favorite stray dog is killed,” said Witzmann, whose organization is one of many nonprofits around the state that provide subsidies for spay and neuter services. There can be similar trauma in urban areas, where workers in overcrowded shelters are sometimes tasked with euthanizing animals, another expert said in hearing testimony. “That’s a terrible job that we don’t ever think about. The people who actually have to do the euthanizing, that’s mentally traumatizing to them,” Angie Fitch of the nonprofit Alaska Rural Veterinary Inc. told the committee. Her organization has provided animal care in more than 100 rural communities over the past 14 years, she said. But despite efforts like that, she and representatives of other nonprofits said, resources to support the volunteer work are scarce and needs remain unmet. Veterinarian shortages exist around the country, but they are acute in rural Alaska. Shortages are particularly dire in Western Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim region. Residents there generally cherish their dogs — 94% of survey respondents in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region reported having dogs, and the human-dog relationship has been part of Indigenous culture for centuries — but large majorities identified stray dogs as a problem, a source of community fear, according to a Colorado State University study published in July. Dog owners in the region reported that only 62% of their animals had been vaccinated against rabies and only 53% had undergone full sterilization procedures, according to the study. Service to rural Alaska often relies on traveling veterinarians. Dr. Eli Butler is one of them. Originally from Kenai and a graduate of the collaborative University of Alaska Fairbanks-Colorado State University veterinary medicine program that has been operating for the past decade, Butler was in Nome for a week in early April. Although she had traveled to other parts of Alaska, it was her first time in Nome, which is famous for its sled dogs and is the site of the finish line for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Butler did some spay and neuter procedures during her stint working at the Nome Animal House , a local pet care center. But she was busier with dental care, she said. Poor tooth health can be a problem for dogs, especially older animals, she said. “It is great to be able to come out here and help an area that really, really needs it,” she said. Stapp’s bill stops short of authorizing any kind of birth control for animals that are already feral. A provision would have allowed municipalities to have trap-neuter-release programs for stray animals, as are carried out in other states. But that was stripped from the bill because it would conflict with state wildlife regulations. It is illegal to release animals into the wild except in