Minnesota’s occurrence databases hold 458 GBIF records for the moose, nearly all of them from the state’s far northeastern corner. That count shows where people have documented a Minnesota moose, not how many are still out there.
A boreal holdout in the Arrowhead
Minnesota’s moose are essentially confined to the Arrowhead now: the conifer and aspen forest that runs from the Iron Range’s cutover and reclaimed mining country north into Voyageurs National Park, Superior National Forest, and the maze of lakes and portages inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A moose needs cold, wet forest with willow and aquatic plants close by, and that combination survives mostly in this one corner of the state. Northwestern Minnesota’s peatlands near Lake of the Woods once held moose too, but that group has largely disappeared over recent decades, leaving the Arrowhead as the animal’s real foothold here.
Numbers the DNR tracks from the air
Minnesota runs an annual aerial count of its northeastern moose because their numbers have been sliding for years, a decline researchers tie to winter ticks and to brainworm, a parasite that white-tailed deer carry without harm and that has pushed farther north as winters warm. Recorded sightings peak in May and June, when calving season and long daylight put moose out in the open near lakeshores and bogs, right where a canoeist or hiker is most likely to see one.
Status in Minnesota
NatureServe ranks the moose S3, vulnerable, in Minnesota, and it’s native to the state. Its hold on the Arrowhead’s boreal forest is real but closely watched, tied to how well the region’s moose weather the ticks and brainworm that have hit them hardest at this southern edge of their range.
Full species profile
