Alaska Native Rural Veterinarians Inc.visits Little Diomede
The stars aligned, or better, the weather obliged, when a team of veterinarian care professionals made it for the first time to Little Diomede to perform veterinarian services to the island’s pet population. After three failed attempts over several years to make it to Diomede, last month three members of Alaska Native Rural Veterinarians Inc., ANRV for short, landed on Diomede’s helipad to spend time on the island, providing pet health care.
They also had traveled to Stebbins, St. Michaels and Gambell to provide pro-bono veterinary care.
The nonprofit organization ANRV Inc. are performing spays, neuters, vaccinations, deworming and wellness checks at no cost to the pet owners. Founding member Angie Fitch was one of the providers visiting Diomede and she said the organization travels to the villages upon invitation and partner with Norton Sound Health Corporation to perform the services to rural pets.
They have been coming to the Norton Sound/ Bering Strait region since 2016 and had served all regional villages. Since then, there is a noticeable difference in the number of stray dogs, Fitch said. “After several years of consistent service, there is finally a visible difference in reduction of disease outbreaks, overpopulation of strays and dog bites/attacks,” she wrote in an email to the Nugget.
She said that while in Diomede, ANRV served every dog in town except for one that had been sent out to receive his shots earlier this year. “It was the first veterinarian visit to the community,” Fitch noted. “The dogs were well-behaved, beautiful, well cared for. ANRV was able to get all the pets up to date on their vaccines which the community was very grateful.”
ANRV has served over 90 communities, many of them multiple times to help reduce overpopulation of strays and disease outbreaks.
Fitch said the dogs in the region are looking good and there are fewer strays. A few years ago Fitch’s team intercepted a distemper outbreak in Gambell during a routine spay/neuter veterinary trip. “Thankfully we were able to get it under control by working alongside the community,” Fitch said. “It took three trips backto-back over a couple months to get the dogs quarantined, vaccinated and the community back to healthy again.”
The distemper outbreak is just one example of why rural veterinary care is so important, she added. Distemper is contagious and deadly to seals.
Fitch added that another concern is rabies. Western Alaska and the Nome region saw a serious uptick in cases in the last few years. “Foxes that come into town can potentially spread rabies to dogs and then dogs are the transmitter of the disease to people,” said Fitch. She said it is important to have spay/neuter services available to control the numbers of stray dogs and to keep the community dogs up to date on vaccinations.
“I am thankful that we are welcomed into the communities to work alongside the people on this issue that is so important to them and the health of their communities,” Fitch said.
While in the communities, ANRV team members talk with students in local schools about dog-bite safety, rabies prevention and becoming veterinarians. In prior years, ANRV also did a doghouse building project, teaching students to build dog houses. It’s a win – win, said Fitch: Students learn carpentry skills and dogs get warm new houses. “This project in on hold because the current price of lumber is so high but we are hoping to start back up as soon as we can get the funding,” said Fitch.
Fitch started the nonprofit in 2011, with Brian Berube and Dr. Tim Hunt, a musher and dog food producer, as the founding veterinarian. They first traveled to the villages of the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and then expanded their services to Norton Sound and other rural areas in Alaska.
Fitch said that ANRV has a large team with a pool of veterinarians and several members from the villages for rural representation. The team that went to Diomede consisted of Angie Fitch, ANRV, Inc. co-founder and executive director, Dr. Bernie Eberle (DVM) and veterinary assistant Hazel Trettevik.
ANRV also partners with UAF veterinary program in which the veterinary students join them to learn about different cultures, veterinary public health and humanitarian care. However, no UAF students came on this trip to the region.