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Missing dog walks 150 miles across Alaskan sea ice, survives “really big bite” by unknown animal
A 1-year-old Australian shepherd took an epic trek across 150 miles of frozen Bering Sea ice that included being bitten by a seal or polar bear before he was safely returned to his home in Alaska.
Mandy Iworrigan, Nanuq’s owner who lives in Gambell, Alaska, and her family were visiting Savoogna, another St. Lawrence Island community in the Bering Strait, last month when Nanuq disappeared with their other family dog, Starlight, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Starlight turned up a few weeks later, but Nanuq, which means polar bear in Siberian Yupik, was nowhere to be found.
About a month after Nanuq disappeared, people in Wales, 150 miles northeast of Savoonga on Alaska’s western coast, began posting pictures online of what they described as a lost dog.
“My dad texted me and said, ‘There’s a dog that looks like Nanuq in Wales,'” Iworrigan said.
Mandy Iworrigan / AP
She reactivated her Facebook account to see if it might be her wandering hound.
“I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?'” she said.
The events of Nanuq’s journey will likely always be a mystery.
“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” Iworrigan said. “I’m pretty sure he ate leftovers of seal or caught a seal. Probably birds, too. He eats our Native foods. He’s smart.”
She used airline points to get her dog back to Gambell on a regional air carrier last week, a charter that was transporting athletes for the Bering Strait School District’s Native Youth Olympics tournament.
Iworrigan filmed the happy reunion when the plane landed at the air strip in Savoonga, with both she and her daughter Brooklyn shrieking with joy.
“Sounds like a Disney Movie- but it’s REAL!” Iworrigan posted on Facebook.
Except for a swollen leg, with large bite marks from an unidentified animal, Nanuq was in pretty good health.
“Wolverine, seal, small nanuq, we don’t know, because it’s like a really big bite,” she said.
On Tuesday, Iworrigan posted a photo of Nanuq, thanking a local animal shelter for providing medicine for the dog.
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Washington — President-elect Donald Trump has been ordered by a federal judge to sit for a deposition next week in his defamation lawsuit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid issued the order on Friday saying Trump will have to give an in-person deposition next week as part of the lawsuit he filed against ABC News in March that alleged Stephanopoulos made defamatory comments on air.
In a March 10 interview with Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Stephanopoulos said that Trump had been “found liable for rape.”
Last year, a jury in New York found Trump liable for sexual abuse of the writer E. Jean Carroll and defaming her with statements he made denying Carroll’s allegations. The judge who heard the case said the sexual abuse that Trump was found liable for — forcibly penetrating Carroll with his fingers — is commonly understood as “rape,” even though the statute defines it as a separate offense.
In his complaint, Trump accused Stephanopoulos of acting “with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth,” and claimed Stephanopoulos “knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false.”
Judge Reid said Trump’s deposition will be in person next week in the Southern District of Florida, which is where his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach is located. The questioning will be limited to four hours, Reid said.
Reid also ordered Stephanopoulos to sit for a deposition next week, either in person or remotely. His deposition is also limited to four hours.
Shawna Mizelle and
contributed to this report.
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