Over the past decade in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta, there were 982 reported dogs bites. More than half the victims were children under 10 years old. Many of the dogs were strays, and the outcome of some of these bites was death for the dogs and, in the worst cases, the humans. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium sees this situation as a public health issue.
“It’s kinda the idea of one aspect of health in a place affects every aspect of health," said Brian Berube, an environmental health consultant with ANTHC.
“We talk about rabies, but you think about all the sanitation risks stray dogs have.”
Like getting into trash and sewage. Like becoming aggressive if they’re traumatized or underfed or un-socialized. And, as Berube explained, “Dogs that live outside and have a meat-based diet are very likely to have parasites, and a lot of these parasites are transferrable to people."
Berube has a vision of more veterinarians addressing rural Alaska’s dog problem.
“So we’d like to see a program where eventually there’s vets that live in rural communities and travel to rural communities, or even something that looks like the health aide program, where there are people who live in the villages that are trained and capable to do basic vet services like spaying, and neutering, and shots.”
Like many visions for rural Alaska, the end is clear, but the way to get there is still being worked out. That’s because the health consortium doesn’t fully know the scope of the problem. In the YK Delta, a vet travels to Bethel for one week a month, and a nonprofit vet service visits a handful of villages every year. So vet access is rare and dog over-population is a problem, but to what extent? And there’s this:
“We can’t get money yet, because we don’t know anything yet. Besides that, there’s a terrible amount of dogs," said Berube. "That’s obvious.”
The solution: surveys. Lots of surveys. Berube is sending surveys throughout rural Alaska to health aides, Village Public Safety Officers, and residents, asking questions like: “Are you able to access veterinary care?” And, “Do you think dogs in your community ever make people sick?”
The health consortium is also teaming up with the Alaska Native Rural Veterinary, Inc., to help gather data as their veterinarians travel to villages providing services.
You can take the survey here.
Correction: Angie Fitch is the Executive Director of the Alaska Native Rural Veterinary, Inc. A previous version of this story referred to her as a veterinarian, which she is not.
