The Animals Of Minnesota

Section 01

Three Biomes Meeting In One State

Minnesota is where three of North America's great biomes converge, and almost nothing about its wildlife makes sense without that. The northeast is boreal forest, spruce and fir running unbroken into Canada. The southeast and centre is eastern deciduous forest, maple and basswood and oak. The west and southwest is tallgrass prairie. The boundaries between them are visible on the ground, and the prairie-forest transition once ran as a diagonal band of oak savanna maintained by fire.

That means Minnesota holds animals that meet nowhere else in the country. Moose and prairie chickens live in the same state. Wolves and badgers. Boreal owls and western meadowlarks. It also means Minnesota is a state of edges, and edges are where species reach their limits and where change shows up first.

Water defines the rest. Minnesota has roughly 12,000 lakes over ten acres, extensive peatland covering millions of acres, and the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. Its northern border includes the Boundary Waters, over a million acres of lake-and-portage wilderness where motors are largely banned.

Minnesota's signature achievement is the wolf. When gray wolves were eliminated from every other state in the lower 48 except a remnant, a few hundred persisted in northern Minnesota. Every wolf now living in Michigan, Wisconsin, and much of the western Great Lakes traces back to that population. Minnesota did not reintroduce wolves; it simply never quite lost them, and the state now holds around 2,700.

Section 02

Minnesota's Official State Animals

The common loon choice is well earned: Minnesota has roughly 12,000 loons, more than any state except Alaska. Loons need clear lakes with fish and undisturbed shoreline, they cannot walk properly on land because their legs are set far back for swimming, and their calls are the defining sound of the northern lake country.

Section 03

Habitats By Region, And Who Lives In Each

1. Boundary Waters and northeastern boreal forest

Spruce, fir, jack pine, and thousands of lakes over exposed bedrock. This is the core of Minnesota's wolf range and the southern edge of true boreal fauna: moose, Canada lynx, American marten, fisher, spruce grouse, boreal owl, great gray owl, black-backed woodpecker, and black bear. See Voyageurs National Park.

2. Northern peatlands

Vast open bogs and fens in the north-central region, among the largest peatland complexes in the lower 48. They hold specialised species: sharp-tailed grouse, yellow rail, Connecticut warbler, and unusual insects and plants adapted to acidic, nutrient-poor conditions.

3. Northern hardwood and lake country

Maple, birch, aspen, and pine with the highest density of lakes. Beaver shape the whole landscape here, and common loons breed on clear lakes. White-tailed deer, bobcat, river otter, and bald eagle are common. Related: what happens when beavers leave.

4. The Big Woods and southeastern Driftless

Maple-basswood forest in the centre-south, and in the southeast an unglaciated Driftless landscape of limestone bluffs and cold spring-fed trout streams. This region holds timber rattlesnake, Blanding's turtle, brook trout, and cliff-nesting peregrine falcons, plus the state's richest snail and land invertebrate fauna.

5. Prairie and the Minnesota River valley

Western and southwestern Minnesota, almost entirely converted to row crop, with remnants on steep or rocky ground. Greater prairie-chicken survives on managed grassland in the northwest, along with Richardson's ground squirrel, badger, western meadowlark, marbled godwit, Wilson's phalarope, and the Dakota skipper butterfly. Bison have been returned to Blue Mounds State Park and Minneopa as conservation herds. Related: state parks where bison still roam.

6. Lake Superior shore

Basalt cliffs and cobble beaches along the largest freshwater lake by area on Earth. Hawk Ridge above Duluth funnels one of the largest raptor migrations in North America, and the lake holds lake trout, cisco, and reintroduced coaster brook trout.

Section 04

The Wolf Refuge That Saved A Species

By the 1960s the gray wolf had been eliminated from every state in the contiguous US except Minnesota, where a few hundred survived in the roadless northeast, and Isle Royale in Michigan. Bounties, poisoning, and trapping had cleared the rest of the country.

Federal protection in the 1970s changed the trajectory. Minnesota's population grew and, critically, dispersed. Wolves crossed into Wisconsin in the late 1970s and into Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the late 1980s, founding both of those populations without any human reintroduction. The western Great Lakes wolf recovery is therefore a natural expansion out of one Minnesota refuge, distinct from the deliberate reintroductions in Yellowstone and central Idaho.

Minnesota now has roughly 2,700 wolves in about 450 packs, the largest population in the lower 48 outside Alaska. Their status has been legally unstable: delisted and relisted several times, with hunting seasons held in 2012, 2013, and 2014 before a court restored federal protection. The state currently cannot hold a season.

Section 05

Mammals Of Minnesota

• White-tailed deer: roughly a million animals and expanding north, which spreads brainworm into moose range.
• Gray wolf: about 2,700, the largest population in the lower 48 outside Alaska.
• Black bear: 12,000 to 15,000 in the forested north.
• Moose: under 4,000 in the northeast after a steep decline, and functionally gone from the northwest.
• Canada lynx: a small resident population in the far northeast, federally threatened, dependent on snowshoe hare.
• Elk: a few hundred in three small herds in the northwest, and the subject of ongoing debate about restoration in the northeast.
• Bison: conservation herds at Blue Mounds and Minneopa State Parks, managed with genetics from Yellowstone lineage animals.
• Bobcat, coyote, red and gray fox, fisher, marten, badger, river otter, mink, weasels, striped and spotted skunk, raccoon, beaver, muskrat, porcupine, snowshoe hare, jackrabbit, thirteen-lined ground squirrel: a mix of forest and prairie species that reflects the state's biome overlap.
• Bats: eight species, with northern long-eared and little brown bats severely reduced by white-nose syndrome. See where bats live.
• Cougar: no breeding population, but Minnesota regularly confirms dispersing individuals from the Dakotas.

Gone: woodland caribou, which persisted in the far north into the 1930s and 1940s, plus wild bison and grizzly bear, which historically reached western Minnesota.

Section 06

Birds Of Minnesota

More than 440 species have been recorded, and the three-biome overlap makes the state's list unusually varied for the interior.

• Common loon: roughly 12,000, more than any state but Alaska, and the state bird.
• Hawk Ridge, Duluth: Lake Superior's shoreline deflects migrating raptors inland, and autumn counts regularly exceed 50,000 birds in a season, with single-day broad-winged hawk flights in the tens of thousands.
• Boreal owls and winter irruptions: Sax-Zim Bog is internationally known for great gray owl, boreal owl, northern hawk owl, and boreal chickadee, and in irruption winters birders travel from across the world. The 2004 to 2005 great gray owl irruption brought unprecedented numbers south.
• Prairie birds: greater prairie-chicken and sharp-tailed grouse both display on leks, plus marbled godwit, upland sandpiper, Wilson's phalarope, bobolink, and Le Conte's and Nelson's sparrows in wet meadow.
• Waterbirds: American white pelican colonies at Marsh Lake are among the largest in North America, plus trumpeter swans restored from extirpation to thousands of birds, sandhill cranes, Forster's terns, and enormous waterfowl migration through the prairie pothole region.
• Bald eagle: Minnesota held one of the largest remaining populations during the DDT era and now has thousands of nesting pairs.

Section 07

Reptiles, Amphibians, And Fish

Cold limits reptiles: Minnesota has around 29 reptile and 22 amphibian species. Two snakes are venomous, both confined to the southeast.

Snakes: 17 species. The timber rattlesnake and the eastern massasauga both occur only in the southeastern bluff country, and both are state listed. The massasauga may no longer be present. Northern Minnesota has no venomous snakes at all.

Turtles: Blanding's turtle, wood turtle, and smooth softshell are all state listed, plus painted, map, snapping, and musk turtles. Road mortality during nesting season is the leading threat, and Minnesota has installed turtle crossings and underpasses at key sites.

Amphibians: mudpuppy, blue-spotted and tiger salamanders, eastern newt, plus wood frog, spring peeper, mink frog, boreal chorus frog, and Blanchard's cricket frog which has nearly vanished from the state.

Fish: walleye is the state fish and the centre of a large recreational fishery. Lake sturgeon are recovering in the Rainy and St. Croix systems, and the St. Croix River holds one of the most diverse mussel faunas in the upper Midwest, including the endangered Higgins eye and winged mapleleaf. Northern pike, muskellunge, lake trout, cisco, and brook trout in Driftless streams complete the picture.

Section 08

Dangerous Animals In Minnesota

• White-tailed deer: the most dangerous animal in the state through vehicle collisions.
• Moose: aggressive when cornered or with calves, and collisions are severe. Numbers are low enough that encounters are uncommon.
• Ticks: Minnesota has high Lyme disease incidence, plus anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and Powassan virus. The blacklegged tick has expanded steadily north and west.
• Black bear: no fatal attacks in recent decades. Food conditioning at cabins and campgrounds is the practical issue.
• Timber rattlesnake and massasauga: southeastern bluffs only, both rare and both protected. Bites are exceptionally unusual.
• Wolves: no verified fatal attack on a person in Minnesota. Livestock and pet conflicts are the real friction.
• Cold and water: hypothermia and drownings, including through thin ice, kill far more people in Minnesota than any animal.

Section 09

Endangered And Protected Species

Minnesota's pressures divide by region. In the prairie south and west, near-total habitat conversion and drainage. In the forested north, warming winters that stress moose, spread deer and brainworm north, and shrink the boreal margin. Statewide, aquatic invasive species including zebra mussels and spiny water flea move between lakes on boat trailers, which is why Minnesota runs one of the country's most aggressive watercraft inspection programmes.

Section 10

Where To See Wildlife In Minnesota

• Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, Duluth: the autumn raptor migration, peaking mid-September for broad-winged hawks.
• Sax-Zim Bog: boreal owls, great gray owls, and northern specialties, best in winter with feeder stations and a visitor centre.
• Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness: wolves, moose, loons, and bear in a million-acre roadless lake country.
• Voyageurs National Park: water-based access to boreal wildlife and one of the best places for loons and eagles.
• Agassiz and Rydell National Wildlife Refuges: northwest prairie and wetland with moose, elk, and waterfowl.
• Blue Mounds and Minneopa State Parks: bison on prairie remnants.
• Bluestem Prairie and Felton Prairie: greater prairie-chicken leks in April, viewed from blinds.
• Whitewater and the southeastern bluffs: trout streams, timber rattlesnake habitat, and Driftless species.