Star Tribune
A ‘moose on the loose’ in central Minnesota draws thousands of fans
For weeks, a dedicated group of wildlife lovers have followed a young moose as he weaves north through Minnesota.
Members of the group take to social media to excitedly share photos and videos of his journey, which they say started in Iowa at the end of September and has continued north through Fairmont, Hutchinson and Melrose.
But the moose hunkered down in northwestern Stearns County for about a week — and members of the “Central MN Moose on the Loose” page on Facebook waited with bated breath for news that he safely crossed Interstate 94 near Sauk Centre.
There were sightings of the moose loping through harvested corn fields, nestled in tall grass and even prancing through the parking lot of a rural business stocked with dozens of all-terrain vehicles. But he still hadn’t made it safely across the busy freeway.
“We were thinking it just didn’t know where to cross,” said Brenda Johnson of Dassel, who runs the Facebook page.
Finally, on Sunday, the group got good news: a sighting near Long Prairie.
“That was the best day ever,” Johnson said. “He was finally north of 94.”
Johnson started the Facebook group in 2018 after sightings of a moose that year in central Minnesota, which is unusually far south for Minnesota moose. But news of that moose’s fate — it was hit by a semi — devastated the few hundred members and the page went mostly dormant until September. That’s when a moose was spotted in northwestern Iowa — exceptionally far south.
In early October, sources reported the moose had crossed the border into Minnesota, and pictures and videos started trickling into the “Moose on the Loose” page again.
“Now here we are 16,000 members later,” Johnson said with a laugh. “We’ve been having fun tracking it.”
Todd Froberg, big game program coordinator with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said the 3,300 or so moose in the state typically stay in northern Minnesota, which is already on the southern cusp of their boreal forest habitat. So when moose wander down to central or southern Minnesota, especially in agricultural areas with sprawling fields, they “stick out like a sore thumb,” he said.
“I would say this one’s fairly unique,” he said. “I think it’s probably just out searching for a home territory or other moose.”
Moose have been known to act strangely and leave their usual habitat if they’re infected with a roundworm called brainworm. But this famous moose, a young male, seems to be healthy, Froberg said.
Paynesville resident Bernie Stang, a member of the moose Facebook group, photographed the moose just south of Grove City in Meeker County in late October after searching for him all weekend.
“My eyes didn’t believe what I was seeing at first,” she said. “We drove around for two days, and here he is. We just got lucky. It was golden hour. That’s what every photographer dreams about.”
On Monday, the moose was spotted near Browerville in Todd County, Johnson said.
“My assumption is that it’s going to cruise along Long Prairie River — they like to travel along river beds — towards Staples or Motley. But who knows?” she said.
Froberg anticipated the moose continuing its trek north because moose, in general, like cooler temperatures. And while this moose’s journey has been atypical, the DNR won’t respond to moose out of their native range unless there’s a safety concern or it appears to be sick or injured.
“Other than that, we’re going to let it be a moose,” he said.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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