DNR moose plan would limit recreational deer feeding

More details emerge on the plan DNR wildlife managers released on moose research and management.  They hope the proposal will reverse a population decline and keep the big animals in the state for decades to come.

The plan seeks to bolster research into what is killing moose faster than they can reproduce and then find what the state can do to turn the population around. Warmer summer and winter temperatures, parasites spread by deer, disease and likely other factors have combined to thwart moose at the southern edge of their natural range.

An estimated 4,900 moose are in northeastern Minnesota, which is down 11 percent from 2010 and down from more than 8,000 a decade ago.

The proposal would keep deer numbers in the primary moose range of St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties to 10 or fewer per square mile. The DNR considers this a critical density because deer carry brain worm parasites fatal to moose. Warmer winters encourage more deer to live farther north, increasing the risk of brain worm in moose.

More controversial, and hard to enforce would be the effort to ban recreational deer feeding in that primary moose range to avoid artificially raising deer numbers.

The proposal would further close the moose hunting season in any moose management zones where hunter success rates drop below 20 percent for three years or below 10 percent inside the BWCAW. Reducing hunting permits as the ratio of bulls to cows continues to drop is also proposed. Experts believe that if the number of bulls drops below two-thirds of the cow numbers, the overall population could collapse.

Rounding out the proposal is continued research into the causes of moose mortality, especially calf moose, including the effect of wolves and bears killing the young.

Public comments on the moose plan will be accepted through Sept. 30. To see the plan, and to make comments, go to www.mndnr.gov/moose.

.