Chasing the mystery beagle of Sand Lake

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Posted: October 30, 2009 - 10:24 pm

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MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News: Barbara Carlson says she frequently hears a baying beagle in the middle of the night from her home along the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.

For the past year or so, late on certain nights on the southernmost edge of the Sand Lake neighborhood, where Dimond Boulevard thins and the houses perch on the bluff above the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge, residents have been waking in the dark to a horrible sound.

It comes from the mud flats, through the wind-twisted trees. Not quite a howl. Or a bark. Or a shriek. But a pained combination of all three. An undulating yowl that carries for miles.

"Like something is dying," said Susan Curry, who lives in the neighborhood. "Like someone is torturing it."

The sound, often heard at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. or even 4, is not a specter in the night. It is not human, nor is it avian or ungulate. Instead, it turns out, it is beagle. The mystery beagle of Sand Lake.

Barbara Carlson caught her first glimpse of the animal in April. She was high on the bluff counting snow geese and sandhill cranes with volunteers for the nonprofit she runs, Friends of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge. They didn't go down onto the flats, so as not to disturb the fragile bird habitat.

It was daytime, and she heard the noise coming from far below. Soon, at the base of the bluff, she saw a fox dash through the trees. Behind it came a whitish blur, the beagle, barking and baying. A few minutes later, the fox ran by again in the other direction, the beagle on its heels.

"We were aghast," she said.

Loose dogs that aren't under voice control are not allowed in the refuge. It's a protected area for birds, moose, coyotes and fox. Harassing wildlife is illegal.

She began a campaign to find the owner. She made fliers. She sent e-mails. She called city Animal Care and Control and the state Department of Fish and Game. Stories came trickling in. The beagle had been caterwauling up and down the coast, from Oceanview to Kincaid Park. One man saw it chase a coyote. Another thought the sound was so piercing that it had to be an animal in distress, possibly stuck in the mud flats. He said he stopped in at a nearby fire station to see about a rescue, but was told it was just the beagle.

Someone saw it in Carlson's yard early in the morning. Someone else whistled to it and it came near, then turned skittish and ran. People say it has a blue-green collar. But where does it come from? And why does it mostly come out at night? Is it feral? Is it sneaking out while its owner sleeps?

Rick Sinnott, the Fish and Game area biologist, said the dog was causing so many problems that he promised the neighbors he'd try to track it. Once there's snow, he says he'll attempt to follow its footprints home.

Dee Essert, who lives on the bluff, hears the beagle frequently, but she's only seen it once. It was last fall. A fox with kits was living on her property, she said. She saw a kit run through her yard. Next came the beagle with its racket, down her driveway and across the street to Susan Curry's house.

MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News: Dee Essert says she has seen a loose beagle harass a fox den in the bluff near her home along the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.

Curry has had enough of the beagle. It makes a habit of crossing her property at night. She has seen it only once. She was in a cab on her way somewhere and it appeared out her window, trotting quietly along the road in broad daylight. It was a squatty-looking hound, she said, maybe 35 pounds.

"Real low to the ground," she said. And, weirdly, not too fit-looking either, she said, given how much distance it appears to be covering.

Her most recent run-in was last week. The beagle showed up in her yard after 11 p.m., bringing the usual rumpus. This time, she said, it was close. So close she could hear it panting out her window. She got up and followed. It threaded through several yards then disappeared down a game trail into the woods. Curry got in her car and followed its sound to a nearby pond. But she couldn't catch sight of it. She stared into the pitchy night, listening to its bitter baying ricochet off the hills. It was cold and late. She decided to go back to bed. The next day she found tracks in the muddy bank. Next time, she said, she's bringing her salmon net.

Photographer Marc Lester and I met Carlson on Thursday to follow some of the beagle's usual routes. The way people talked about the dog, it was starting to seem almost mythic. It could bound up a steep 200-foot hillside. Its plaintive howls could be far away, coming from the south or north, and then, in a moment, they would be right there, just outside the circle of the porch light.

Carlson took us by the Kincaid motocross park, through several gates, to a trail off the parking lot. Wind scraped the ground and plastered sand in the corners of my eyes. We tramped through the woods out to the bluff. I noticed a middle-sized dog print pressed into the soft dirt of the trail.

I looked down the coast, searching for the form of the beagle, but there was only mud and a few abandoned cars. I listened for the dog, for its faint tortured howl, its distant bawl. But it was gone, vanished to wherever it came from, and all I could hear was the wind shushing through the grass and the faraway rumble of a jet.

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