A new federal grant award will fund collaborative planning by the DNR to further large-scale moose habitat restoration in northeast Minnesota.

The award from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, through the new America the Beautiful Challenge, will provide $443,600 to the DNR for the planning effort, with a goal of an implementation plan for moose habitat restoration on three areas of 10,000 to 50,000 contiguous acres each. Tribal, federal, county and non-governmental partner organizations helped develop the planning approach and signed letters of support for the DNR’s grant application, which was one of 55 chosen nationwide from more than 500 applications.

The patchwork of tribal, federal, state, county and private land in northeast Minnesota makes large-scale habitat restoration particularly challenging. The grant will fund a series of workshops with tribal, federal, state, county and non-governmental partner organizations in 2023 and 2024 to identify the challenges facing large-scale moose habitat restoration, find strategies to address the challenges, identify areas for large-scale habitat restoration and create an implementation plan for the restoration. The implementation plan will also identify potential sources of funding to complete the agreed upon large-scale habitat restoration.