N.Y. protest targets an Alaska musher
PULASKI, N.Y. - An appearance by Willow sled dog racer DeeDee Jonrowe during a four-day series of workshops on female empowerment is drawing protests from animal rights activists.
Jonrowe, a breast cancer survivor who holds the fastest women's time in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, is scheduled to speak Friday at a local school in Pulaski as part of Wild Women Unite. The conference is designed to teach women to empower themselves by learning about having fun in the outdoors, said Yvonne Kopy, the event's director.
Kopy said she has received about 30 e-mails a day, from as far away as Europe, asking her to remove Jonrowe from the program.
Jonrowe is still expected to speak Friday.
"I've fought many battles, but I didn't expect this one," Kopy said. "The U.K., Italy, France, Scotland. That they really care who comes to Pulaski, New York, I had to laugh."
Many of the protest e-mails are a form letter created by Sled Dog Action Coalition, a Florida-based animal rights organization. The letter asks that Wild Women Unite sever its ties with Jonrowe, calling the Iditarod a "barbaric race" during which cruel mushers push their dogs to inhumane limits.
"The Iditarod is animal abuse," Margery Glickman, director for Sled Dog Action Coalition, said in an e-mail. "And animal abuse is not motivational for women."
The Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also opposes the Iditarod and criticized Jonrowe's appearance.
Jonrowe said in past interviews that sled dog racing is a lifestyle that animal rights activists don't understand. Dog sleds are a traditional way to travel in areas that are inaccessible to other means.
"It's a development on that lifestyle," she said. "What I'm doing brought on the need for premium foods, health care, sports medicine, things like that for animals."
Jonrowe said she loves all her dogs, and that it's hard to hear people who don't know her accuse her of animal cruelty.