New veterinary partnership aims to serve North Slope villages
A new vet partnership started rural work in Galena and is aimed at North Slope villages, where limited care has left families managing rabies rules, loose dogs and sick sled dogs.
The Alaska Federation of Natives and Alaska Native Rural Veterinary Inc. sent the Rural Veterinary Public Health Program into Galena this week, with North Slope villages among the remote communities the partnership is built to serve. The effort targets places in Western Alaska, the Interior and other isolated areas where no resident veterinarians are available, leaving families to make do with only occasional animal care.
Dr. Arleigh Reynolds serves as the program’s medical advisor. The program is built on One Health, the view that human, environmental and animal health are linked. In practice, that means the program centers spay and neuter services, vaccinations and zoonotic disease prevention, a mix aimed at lowering the risk that diseases moving through wildlife can reach pets and people in tightly connected village settings.
North Slope communities already rely on the borough’s Public Health Office/Veterinary Clinic for limited veterinary services, animal control, environmental disease investigations, rabies control, stray and loose dog management, confinement, pet relinquishment and pet adoption. The borough requires all cats and dogs to be vaccinated annually for rabies, and its clinic offers emergency and appointment-based medical care for domesticated animals.
On May 23, 2024, Sen. Lisa Murkowski backed federal legislation that would add veterinary care to Indian Health Service duties to address rabies and other risks, with support from the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and the Navajo Nation. On May 8, 2026, lawmakers were again addressing Alaska’s chronic problems with abandoned and loose dogs, with backing from AFN, the Alaska Municipal League and the Alaska Veterinary Medical Association.
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