Hired sharpshooters, searching for a small herd of 16 elk in northwestern Minnesota, are baiting areas this weekend to attract and kill the wild animals.

The elk have been a nuisance to farmers near Lancaster and need to be removed, said Dennis Simon, wildlife management section chief for the Department of Natural Resources.

However, some landowners say the elk have done little damage in the area lately and cannot understand why the DNR wants to eliminate the herd.

"We don't like this any more than anybody else does," Simon said. "It's understandable that nobody feels comfortable just going out and shooting a small subgroup of fairly majestic animals like this. But we feel that it's necessary for the long-term viability of elk in Minnesota."

Simon said that it's better to use the sharpshooters to kill the animals than have them killed illegally. Farmer frustration has mounted near Lancaster, where the elk have caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to crops, feed and fences, he said. Removing the troublesome animals could eventually cause them to be replaced with other elk from farther north that are less acclimated to farms, Simon said.

Killed as a group

Once the elk are attracted to an area, four or five shooters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services will kill them, Simon said. The DNR will use ATVs or heavier equipment to haul the 500-pound elk carcasses and process the meat.

The goal is to remove the animals by the end of April, Simon said, but the DNR wants to act quickly while the ground is still frozen because removing the carcasses will be easier. The contract with federal sharpshooters provides for a total of up to $37,000 for the group's work, depending on how long it takes, Simon said. The project will also cost an unknown amount of DNR staff time, equipment, disease testing, and possibly aircraft time, he said.

The Lancaster elk are one of three groupings of elk in Kittson County that the DNR considers to be one herd. The other two groups will not be killed. One near Waterton contains 23 elk, and another that straddles the border with Manitoba contains 75 to 175 animals.

Landowners at odds

Gary Mattson, who owns a farm in the area that has been put into conservation, said many landowners enjoy seeing the elk.

"This is a wild elk herd that lived in Minnesota many years ago and we've worked hard to get them to come back," he said. "Now to just wipe them out because of a few complaints seems absolutely ridiculous and unfair."

Mattson said that the DNR allowed a hunt on the elk during the past two years, already reducing the size of the herd, and noted that farmers can receive compensation for crop damage and feed losses from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

One of them, Randy Coffield, raises 280 beef cows on a farm just east of Lancaster. Coffield said elk were a bigger problem two years ago than this past winter. He was reimbursed $1,800 for the corn they ate in 2009, he said, but not for more recent damage to barbed-wire fence that works fine for cattle, but doesn't stop elk.

The elk are just too tame, said Coffield, and none of the dozen or so farmers in his area want them around anymore. "They're fun to see and they're always in a bunch," he said. "If they'd spread out like moose or deer, it wouldn't be so bad, but when they come in together and do something, it can be a lot of damage and extra work."

Simon acknowledged that the DNR received no complaints about elk from Lancaster farmers this past winter, and only one complaint from a Waterton farmer. He said the elk spent time at other farms whose owners have higher tolerance for the animals. But Simon said that it's only a matter of time until the animals move into summer alfalfa and hay fields, and that they need to be eliminated.

"They're going to remain nuisance animals," he said.

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388