The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will hold a moose hunt this fall in the 1854 Ceded Territory, which covers all of Cook and Lake counties.
Sixty permits will be issued through a drawing. Fond du Lac hunters must apply as a party of 3-4 hunters.
Hunters will be limited to one bull, and the season will close when 18 moose are registered or on December 31, whichever comes first.
The band issued the limited hunt after looking carefully at the biological data – and determined that the data indicated that the moose herd has stabilized in recent years at around 4,000 animals in northeast Minnesota.
The tribe says it will also allow three bull moose to be taken for community needs.
Boise Forte Band of Chippewa will hold a moose hunt on its reservation boundaries with a limit of five bulls (four moose plus one for elder subsistence) that can be harvested from tribal lands.
The season will run from September 22 to October 14.
Last year Boise Forte and Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa hunted in the 1854 territory and each took five bulls in a very limited subsistence harvest.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) aerial Minnesota moose count for 2017 was 3,710, just off the 2016 estimate of 4,020.
And while the count appears to have stabilized over the last four years, moose show no signs of coming back to 2006 numbers when the DNR estimated there were 8,840 moose in northeastern Minnesota.
The annual moose count, which is conducted by air each January, is done in partnership with the Divisions of Enforcement and Fish and Wildlife, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the 1854 Treaty Authority. Both the Lake Superior Chippewa and 1854 authority contribute personnel for the annual moose survey.
Minnesota cancelled its’ moose hunt in 2013 after low numbers were recorded in the 2013 aerial survey.
In 2014 Norman Deschampe, chairman of the Grand Portage Tribal Council, argued that a tribal subsistence hunt was fundamentally different than a sports hunt and should be considered differently. Since that time the DNR, though the 1854 Treaty Authority, has agreed that a limited taking of moose helps the bands maintain their tradition and culture.
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