Anchorage, Alaska – An iconic reindeer so dear that he has been in parades, appeared in reality shows and visited by schoolchildren on excursions on excursions in The largest city in Alaska He is fighting for his life after I mysteriously ill Cyer after someone manipulated his pen.
Since then, 8 -year -old Star has had pneumonia, digestion problems and rapid weight loss. The owner of Star, Albert Whitehead, has taken him to a veterinarian every two days to receive attention and hoping to find a cause of the problems.
“I think we have done everything possible for him,” Whitehead said. The Sabrieta Holland veterinarian said the reindeer prognosis is “guarded.”
Star lives in a fenced pen attached to Whitehead’s house on the edge of the center of Anchorage. More than 20 years have passed since someone tried to manipulate for the last time with the enclosure where the Renaces called Star have remained during the last seven decades. Star is the seventh in a line of reindeer to bear that name.
At the beginning of January, someone cut a huge hole in the fencing to gain entrance, spending about five minutes inside with Star before taking off. What the person did in the pen did, but Star began to have stomach problems and falling weight shortly after.
Then, on February 20, Anchorage police found the kind and confident reindeers wandering around the center and returned it home.
When Whitehead checked his safety cameras, he discovered that someone had used bolt cutters to eliminate padlocks from the Star pen and a street door. Star followed the man to the neighborhood, and the reindeer ended only in the center, family streets because that is where Whitehead accompanies him.
The next night, the situation became more serious.
Whitehead was watching video feed when a man who wore a scarf on his face sprayed some of two different cans on the Star pen and twice hit the reindeer in the face with an unknown substance.
Whitehead ran out to face the man.
“I shouted for him to stop, ‘What the hell are you doing? What are you spraying in the animal? Don’t do that, leave that! ‘”, Said Whitehead.
The man replied: “I am trying to help Star.”
“I have no idea what he meant with that,” said Whitehead, who suspects, according to odors, that aerosols could have been disinfectants and deodorants.
Whitehead and the police believe he was the same man from the previous night. It is not known if January manipulation involved the same person.
“I don’t think the individual would like to harm the star, but for his actions, he did,” said Whitehead.
The Anchorage police published the surveillance video on social networks in the hope that it will lead to the suspect’s identity. Until now, no viable tips have entered, spokesman Christopher Barraza said in an email.
Star pneumonia worsened, and a cough leads Whitehead to believe that Star ate something harmful, maybe loose.
It is likely that pneumonia is due to him accidentally inhaling chronic reflux or regurgitation of the content in the largest of the four stomachs of the reindeers, said Holland. Aerosols possibly also contributed.
It is possible that there is a blockade, but the largest stomach of a reindeer is quite large and does not easily obstruct, Holland said. However, plastic bags ingested that cause chronic weight loss and indigestion problems are the most common strange objects it has seen in the reindeer.
The next option would be surgery to look at the abdomen of reindeer and possibly eliminate any blockage, but it is generally a bad result, even in healthy deer, he said.
The link between Whitehead and Star is “quite significant and beautiful,” said Holland.
“Daily life and Albert’s reason to go for a walk and everything is due to Star. And Star is also really fond of Albert,” Holland said in a text. “It will be quite devastating for him if he loses Star.”
Anchorage Pioneers Gold and Ivan Stewart began the tradition of reindeer, bringing the deer they received from a native shepherd from Alaska to Anchorage in the 1950s. Whitehead assumed the care of their friends in 2002.
He Average life of a reindeer It is about 15 years old, but some stars had long lives, such as the first one that lived up to 23. Others did not live so long, including the second star, which was stolen, beaten until death and then massacred by a well -known fairbank flesh thief. The third star died after eating a plastic bag.
