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# Collaboration Helps Boost Moose Habitat Across NE Minnesota

**Christine Kolinski-Public Affairs SpecialistUSDA Forest Service-Superior National Forest**

Since 2013, the ‘Minnesota Moose Collaborative’ has implemented a variety of habitat enhancement treatments across the core moose range in northeast Minnesota using funds provided from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature and recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC).

The funds help to restore, protect, and enhance Minnesota's wetlands, prairies, forests, and habitat for fish, game, and wildlife. Partners and Bands in the Minnesota Moose Collaborative included three organizations; five federal, state, and counties; two Bands and The 1854 Treaty Authority; and two universities. See full listing at the end.

 

## Why are habitat enhancement treatments needed?

                      -   
Minnesota county map displaying where habitat projects have been completed using funds during Phase 32, Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC)
 

While the 2023 population estimate of 3,290 moose marks a decade of Minnesota’s moose population remaining relatively stable1, this iconic species’ still needs assistance of partners, Bands, and caring parties to make sure the species thrives for years to come.

Moose rely on young vegetation to fuel their large bodies. Other impacts to moose numbers include disease, parasites, wolf and bear predators, as well as deer populations. Historically, large-scale wildfire, and later, widespread timber harvest, provided good habitat and browse conditions for moose across NE Minnesota (Beatty, 1962, Peek, 1974 and Peek et al. 1976). However, without consistent, large-scale, natural disturbance on the landscape from wildfire and wind events, wildlife managers use vegetation management techniques like timber harvest to mimic these disturbances for moose habitat creation. Partners and Bands within the Collaborative have been coordinating timber harvest and prescribed fires across land management boundaries to try to obtain the large amounts of disturbance that moose prefer.

For example, if one land management agency has a timber sale without enough volume for a merchantable timber sale, they can work with partners and the Bands to focus on moose habitat instead. The Forest Service uses authorities such as the Good Neighbor Authority to work with other land management agencies to create timber sales and vegetation projects that are more marketable; these relationships help on many levels! In turn, tens of thousands of acres that did not have enough volume for a merchantable timber sale can become moose habitat.

### Descriptions of treatments used include:

Mechanical site preparation or shearing treatments prepare an area for regeneration and reduce competition from brush and undesirable tree species. The equipment types and operating season depend on the site conditions, such as soil moisture and vegetation. The treatment can be used in stands with low stocking and undesirable regeneration, or post-harvest as a secondary treatment. Shearing, cutting, and burning of old decadent brush to stimulate regrowth provides more palatable, nutritious, and easy to reach vegetation for moose.

Prescribed fire within well-defined boundaries can be used to reduce fuel hazards, as a resource management treatment, or both. Burn intensity varies throughout the treatment unit depending on vegetation, fuels, and topography. These burns create a new, young stand. Unburned areas or lightly burned areas within the unit can provide a matrix of habitat. Future maintenance burns may be necessary to meet project objectives.

“The boreal forest landscape is fire dependent, and moose are an integral part of that relationship, says Mike Schrage, Wildlife Biologist for the Fond du Lac Resource Management Division. “Large fires or other kinds of disturbance in patches of 1,000 to 100,000 acres create the kind of young forests moose need to provide them with abundant, high-quality browse. Fire not only can provide good browse conditions for moose but can help in reducing moose parasites as well. Forest managers cannot use large fires as a management tool everywhere on the landscape, but timber harvest and other kinds of vegetation management can be used to replicate the same kinds of young forest patches moose need. In northeast Minnesota we have seen moose respond very positively to conditions created by large fires such as the 2005 Trout Lake Prescribed Burn and the 2011 Pagami Creek Wildfire. In other areas, moose continue to do well where ongoing timber harvest and other kinds of vegetation management provide good habitat conditions for them,” said Schrage.

## Collaborative Accomplishments To Date

The Collaborative’s funding has been broken into phases:
                    - Phase I (2013 – 2015) completed 5,746 acres, $831,362 in grant funds
                    - Phase II (2016 – 2018) completed 20,399 acres, $1,996,391 in grant funds
                    - Phase III (2019 – 2021) completed 11,466 acres, $1,938,000 in grant funds
                    - Phase IV (2021 – 2026) proposed 9,500 acres, $1,809,000 in grant funds

## Additional Moose Research and Projects

### Northern Research Station–USDA Forest Service- Moose and Climate Change Modeling

Landis vegetation modeling to project potential climate change futures (plus inputs relating to predators, disease, and other stressors) to compare silvicultural treatments and determine which may be the best path to benefit moose.

Partnership Work Aims to Support Moose Populations in Minnesota

### Minnesota Department of Natural Resources-University of Minnesota Landscape Collaborative

America the Beautiful Grant to host moose workshops over the next year with the ultimate goal of identifying habitat priority areas of 10,000 to 50,000 contiguous acres for habitat restoration over the next 5-10 years. Numerous partners are involved including the 1854 Treaty Authority, Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

### Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Moose Tracking

Beginning in 2022, the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa captured and GPS-collared moose adjacent to the Greenwood Fire and the Swamp River Rx Burn on the Superior National Forest to investigate moose use of burned landscapes.

### Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Fond du Lac Band and 1854 Treaty Authority Moose Surveys

The Minnesota DNR, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the 1854 Treaty Authority have conducted an annual winter aerial moose survey to track populations as well as habitat use related to fires and vegetation management since the 1980s with more recent habitat surveys since 2012.

The Superior National Forest has completed over 2,000 acres of prescribed fire for wildlife benefits, including moose. Locations of prescribed fires can be found in the 2023 Prescribed Fire plans.

### Superior National Forest Vegetation Management Projects

Recent projects such as the Twin Green and the Tofte Landscape Project(s) contained specific objectives for moose habitat management. Both projects are starting to be implemented on the Forest, and management actions associated with these projects will continue for the next 15-20 years.

The Twin Green Project area includes providing quality moose habitat as a main driver of its purpose and need. The project will use prescribed fire as a main disturbance agent because moose prefer to browse vegetation that are fire-adapted and that regenerate robustly when stimulated by fire. Timber harvest will also be used as a tool for keeping early successional young forest (aspen and birch) on the landscape, which are a large component of the moose diet.

The Tofte Landscape Project could create as much as 17,144 acres of young forest for moose (along with grouse and other wildlife species).

## What’s Next?

The future of moose in Minnesota is uncertain; however, the Superior National Forest will continue to engage with partners in seeking ways to benefit the species. Moose are an iconic Minnesota animal to the more recent settlers (those who arrived in the last several hundred years).

For the Bands who have occupied this landscape for much longer, moose remain an important source of traditional food and hides as well as a focal point in their struggle to retain their rights to hunt, fish and gather under the Treaty of 1854 in NE Minnesota.

We all want moose to thrive across this landscape for many reasons; so, our work will continue.
                    -  
Clearing brush around conifers produces mixed forest habitat and regenerates moose browse during 2020. Photo courtesy of The Nature Conservancy.
 
                    -  
A dozer uses a rock rake for soil scarification to plant conifer trees at low density for wildlife habitat. In areas where prescribed fire or timber harvest are not operationally feasible, non-harvest mechanical treatments are sometimes used as a disturbance surrogate. This work was done with Lessard-Sams Outdoor heritage fund for moose habitat improvement. USDA Forest Service Photo, Ryan Pennesi.
 
                    -  
Aerial view of the Swamp River Project. Grand Portage State Forest and Gunflint Ranger District 2021. Implementation was a 672ha (1,663ac) burn across ownerships for the purposes of wildlife habitat, including moose. This project was a collaboration between the MN Department of Natural Resources and the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. USDA FS photo, credit Patrick Johnson
 

## Organizations

                    - Minnesota Deer Hunters Association
                    - Ruffed Grouse Society
                    - The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota

### Federal. State and Counties

                    - Superior National Forest
                    - Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
                    - Cook County
                    - Lake County
                    - St. Louis County

### Tribal

                    - 1854 Treaty Authority
                    - Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
                    - Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa

### Universities

                    - University of Minnesota-Duluth
                    - Forest Service Northern Research Station

 

For moose images-see Superior National Forest Moose Flickr album 

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