Outdoor Insights: Looking into Minnesota’s elk issues

Minnesota’s elk population has been in the news, starting with the state offering 12 tags in 2026 to harvest animals in the northwest. The DNR currently has no elk coordinator, and efforts to create a new elk herd in the northeast have stalled thanks to a dispute between the Fond du Lac and Red Lake bands.

This scribe has border envy as Wisconsin’s two elk herds show steady growth and love from the Badger State public – state and tribal. For a bowhunting publication in 1995, I reported on Wisconsin’s launch of its “Clam Lake herd” about 180 miles northeast of the Twin Cities. After creating an elk plan in 1989, Wisconsin translocated 25 Michigan elk in 1995.

That herd grew in fits and starts for 20 years until wildlife managers there supplemented them with new genetic stock from Kentucky (an eastern state that now has 10,000 wild elk!). Those 150 animals reinvigorated Wisconsin’s stock, and today, our neighbor to the east boasts more than 600 cows, bulls, and calves in two herds – the Northern Elk Management Zone (formerly Clam Lake), and the Central Elk Management Zone near Black River Falls.

That latter contains over 200 animals just 50 miles from my favorite border town, Winona. While emphasizing that growing the herd remains a priority, Wisconsin is offering 20 elk hunting tags this year – 12 in the northern herd and eight near Black River.

Per the 2026 elk survey, Minnesota has about 90 animals between our Grygla and Kittson-Central herds. At 313 animals, the Caribou-Vita herd is larger, and they ignore the international border. The herd spends much of its time in Manitoba, but its range includes a piece of northeast Kittson County and a sliver of Roseau.

During the 2026 elk survey, all of that herd was in Manitoba. Despite having a smaller elk population than Wisconsin, we tripled the number of 2026 elks tags (12) for state hunters compared to 2025 (4). Last winter, Minnesota Public Radio posted a story, “State elk populations stagnate, researchers look into why.”

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Can someone reconcile that for me?

DNR Wildlife Section Manager Dave Trauba explained the challenges with managing these large members of the deer family.

State law (demanded by ag interests and friendly local legislators) restricts the number of elk in the region, and the Grygla and border herds both saw increases in size estimates from 2025.

“In my years working with Minnesota wildlife, this has been a really challenging one because everyone wants a part of these elk,” Trauba said. “It’s such a balance. Our ag producers would like us to be much more aggressive with management.”

Will the state fill its elk biologist position? In March, Kelsie LaSharr took a biologist post with a nonprofit in Utah. Plans to fill that job remain on hold as the section reviews multiple vacancies and evaluates priorities, including a possible new moose plan (something this scribe demanded here not long ago…)

As for the theory to move some of those northwestern elk to establish a northeastern herd – where the habitat looks like northern Wisconsin – Trauba says that effort is not dead. Per last week’s Outdoor News story, that’s contingent on the two tribal entities and the state forging an agreement.

An elk study of the northwestern herd remains underway, too, led by Amanda McGraw, the DNR’s lead deer, moose, and elk research scientist. Finally, could we get elk from somewhere else in the nation to create a northeastern herd? Minnesota law in the CWD era prohibits the state or private sector from importing elk.

Given the growing CWD footprint across the country, our northwestern elk remain the best option for building a northeastern herd. To the DNR and bands, this writer offers a simple plea: Put aside minor differences and short-term inconveniences and let’s establish a northeast herd.