Fond du Lac elk restoration inches ahead
Feb 1st
An effort to restore elk to Northeastern Minnesota continues to slowly move ahead, but don’t expect to hear bulls bugling anytime soon.
Natural resources officials with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are applying for state conservation grants that would help pay for an intensive University of Minnesota study to determine if adequate public land habitat exists in the area to support a population of elk.
Another study, by a separate group at the university, would delve into public opinion to see if residents of the region support the big animal’s return.
The results of those studies would help determine how — or if — the elk reintroduction proposal would move forward.
Meanwhile, Fond du Lac officials in December secured the unanimous support of the Carlton County Board to apply for the state money and see if the elk restoration is possible from both a biological and social level.
It’s that social acceptance that may be the biggest factor.
“Elk are really habitat generalists. They would thrive in just about any area of Minnesota you put them into,” said Mike Schrage, wildlife biologist for the Fond du Lac’s Resource Management Division. “The key, however, is you have to have a place where people will accept them. And that generally means no agriculture, or at least no crop farms.”
The problem in northwestern Minnesota, where there has been a small elk herd since the 1930s, is that the elk have settled in an area of intensive agricultural production. Local farmers and lawmakers have moved to keep that herd as small as possible.
“They eat haystacks. They eat crops. … Elk are not well-liked up there at all,” Schrage said. “The key is to have lots of public land, state and county, that’s fairly intensively managed. That means a lot of young aspen and that’s what elk like to eat.”
Studies of elk in other eastern states show they like the same habitat as deer and grouse, Schrage noted, so there’s no need to change current forest management efforts to bring elk to the Northland.
Ten-year effort
If the Fond du Lac elk studies are approved this year by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, the money — from the state’s lottery profits — would be available in mid-2016, with the studies conducted that fall, Schrage said.
If the results are positive, the Fond du Lac band would have to find a state or province willing to give up dozens, potentially hundreds of elk. And the source herd or herds of elk must be certified as disease-free — especially for chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis.
“I’m telling people this is going to be a 10-year effort … and it’s going to be north of $1 million by the time it’s done. And that’s if everything goes well,” Schrage said. “We’re thinking we’d need to bring in 200-300 elk over three or four years.”
It’s the first significant plan to reintroduce free-roaming elk to parts of east-central and Northeastern Minnesota for the first time since they were extirpated from the region 125 years ago.
Karen Diver, Fond du Lac tribal chairwoman, highlighted the idea in last year’s “state of the band” report. Fond du Lac tribal leaders want to see the elk restored somewhere within the 1837 or 1854 treaty areas that cover much of eastern Minnesota where the band has court-sanctioned rights for hunting, fishing and gathering as well as natural resource management.
Fond du Lac tribal leaders last year authorized the band’s natural resources staff to study the concept of reintroducing “omashkoozoog” in southern St. Louis, Carlton and northern Pine counties.
Carlton County has about 72,000 acres of county-managed, tax-forfeited public land, said Greg Bernu, the county’s land commissioner. He said about 16,000 of those acres are within areas, such as the Nemadji State Forest, that have been eyeballed as potential elk habitat.
“The county was willing to go on record supporting studying this. They needed to show this has some local support to help get it going,” Bernu said.
St. Louis County has more than 900,000 acres of county land, as well as extensive state land, available in the southern quarter of the county — much of it in the Cloquet Valley State Forest — where elk restoration might be most likely.
Fond du Lac officials also are hoping to land the blessings of officials in St. Louis and Pine counties to move ahead with the study.
Long history
Schrage noted that elk were abundant and native to the area — much more so than white-tailed deer — until the elk were hunted out by the late 1800s as European immigrants settled the area. Before that, the Ojibwe had a history with elk as much as with deer, moose and caribou, he noted.
Elk are fairly adaptable, experts say, and are more likely to thrive in a warming Northland climate than moose, which are rapidly declining. Schrage said no elk would be released anywhere near the current moose population in northern St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties.
Rich Staffon, retired DNR wildlife biologist in Cloquet and president of the Duluth Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, said he thinks elk could thrive across most of the proposed area. Staffon was the longtime DNR wildlife manager for much of the of the possible elk range.
“Biologically, I don’t think there’s an issue. The habitat could support them. But there will be a social issue, for sure,” Staffon said. “They need to make sure that wherever they release any elk, that the local community really has strong support.”
Elk appear to co-exist well with white-tailed deer, the dominant species now on the Northland forest landscape. Several other eastern states have reintroduced wild elk herds, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee. None have reported any negative impact on deer. Illinois, West Virginia and New York currently are considering reintroducing elk.
Michigan restarted its elk population with just seven animals in 1918, a herd that since has grown to more than 900 and is well accepted by both landowners and sportsmen in the state, including deer hunters. According to elk experts, elk and deer have different diets during the spring, summer and fall. While the diet overlaps during the winter, even then elk and deer generally forage in different areas.
“There’s so many tough environmental issues these days,” Staffon noted. “It’s kind of fun to talk about something positive, restoring a species.”
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