Minnesota lawmakers hear testimony on shortfall in wolf and elk depredation payments

Senators in the Committee on Agriculture, Veterans Broadband, and Rural Development heard testimony Feb. 26 that the Minnesota Department of Agriculture ran short of funds to reimburse livestock producers for verified wolf and elk depredations.

The testimony focused on Senate File 469, a recurring appropriation to pay wolf and elk depredation claims. Sponsor Senator Johnson presented the bill and said the program has been in place since he arrived at the Legislature in 2017. He said department records show more claims than money available and urged the committee to include increased funding.

Why it matters: Producers say depredation payments reduce the financial and emotional burden when livestock are killed or crops and fences are damaged. Witnesses told the committee that the number of wolf-conflict calls and verified losses has risen, increasing pressure on the fund that reimburses eligible losses.

Jake Thompson, president of the Minnesota State Cattlemen's Association, told the committee cattle producers in northern Minnesota and other regions are "struggling greatly with wolf and elk depredation" and said the Department of Agriculture (MDA) had exhausted the fund and could not reimburse all claims. "Producers simply cannot get reimbursed when there isn't enough funding for it to happen," Thompson said.

Hunter Peterson of the Minnesota Farm Bureau said the program ran out of money about halfway through the fiscal year and called for funding commensurate with any state policy to maintain or grow wolf and elk populations. "If it's the state's position to maintain or grow current wolf and elk populations, then funding for depredation payments is commensurate, to ensure farmers and ranchers are fairly compensated," Peterson said.

Stu Lohrey, government relations director for Minnesota Farmers Union, described both verified and suspected depredations and said producers often perceive losses to be higher than the verified counts because investigators sometimes cannot find sufficient evidence to confirm a wolf kill. Mark Abrahamson, plant protection director at MDA, explained that agency investigators use a preponderance-of-evidence standard to determine whether a carcass was killed by a wolf; if investigators do not verify wolf depredation, the state does not pay.

Committee members asked how the verification process affects producers. Abrahamson described the factors examiners use, including tracks, feeding patterns and bite marks, and confirmed that a payment follows only when an investigator concludes "the preponderance of the evidence" indicates a wolf kill.

Quantitative details cited to the committee included MDA's 2024 estimate of about 2,900 wolves in Minnesota and a 2024 USDA Wildlife Services report showing 252 calls for wolf conflict management assistance that year; 36 of those calls were verified wolf kills or injuries, and 128 of the verified incidents involved livestock or poultry. In 2024 MDA had been allocated $175,000 for wolf claims and reported total wolf-claim requests of $187,942.

Senate File 469 was laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus agriculture bill; no final vote was taken in committee.

Ending note: Committee discussion emphasized the limits of the depredation account and the trade-offs lawmakers face in setting wildlife and reimbursement policy.