Beloved Reindeer That Frequented City Streets Dies After Weeks of Suffering Following Attack with Unknown Fluid
A celebrity reindeer in Anchorage, Alaska, died weeks after likely being poisoned.
Star was eight years old when his owner made the decision to euthanize him on April 1, according to Alaska Public Media.
“His health was so bad that he was not doing very well,” owner Albert Whitehead said. “He was suffering.”
A local icon in Anchorage, the reindeer had starred in parades, been featured on reality television, and served as the delight of schoolchildren on field trips, according to the Associated Press.
He’s the seventh reindeer named “Star” in a town tradition dating back to the 1950s.
Whitehead had rescued this particular reindeer from a farm in Palmer, Alaska, and he was the first male in a line of females.
Living in a pen adjacent to Whitehead’s home at the edge of downtown Anchorage, it’s been more than 20 years since anyone has messed with the cage housing Star’s predecessors.
That changed in January, when an intruder cut the lock to his pen before he “did something to make him go off diet,” Whitehead said.
While it’s unclear what happened, Star stopped eating and began losing weight after that incident.
Who does this?? If you read the stories on Star, was tampered with more than once! Local/State Mascot Reindeer! Have people no soul…#justiceforstar $star
79kiqBW7gPe5XU4XLn1dTfvLPDtEBMt9PJmNGymmpump https://t.co/NvS2vfTUtT
— Matthew Emmons (@MatthewEmmons7) April 5, 2025
Then in February, someone cut the lock again and led Star into town, where police later found him wandering.
The next night, the culprit struck again.
Only this time Whitehead was waiting.
He was watching a live security feed when a man walked up to the pen, his face covered with a scarf.
Using two different cans, the man sprayed something into the cage, even spraying some in the reindeer’s face.
“I yelled at him to stop, ‘What the hell are you doing? What are you spraying on the animal? Don’t do that, quit that!’” Whitehead said.
“I’m trying to help Star,” the man allegedly replied.
“I have no idea what he meant by that,” Whitehead said.
Anchorage police still haven’t identified the man in the video.
But soon after, Star developed pneumonia, recovered slightly, then worsened again.
“Suddenly he relapsed, and some other issues developed,” Whitehead said. “The vets now are going through a necropsy with him, and we won’t have a result of that for a couple weeks.”
Whether or not Whitehead will continue the reindeer tradition after the tragedy is uncertain.
“Would you be willing to put another animal into that enclosure, knowing there’s somebody out there that has doing this kind of stuff to him?” he reportedly said.
Reindeer usually live about 15 to 18 years, according to PBS.
In North America, the Rangifer tarandus is technically called a caribou, while in Europe and Asia it’s called a reindeer, according to the National Park Service.
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