Officials with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources are adding new photography methods to their elk-counting effort, pushing beyond the typical aerial survey.
The DNR just wrapped up its regular aerial population count across the Pigeon River Country State Forest – the heart of Michigan’s elk range. Wildlife experts fly for about eight days over nearly 100 plots of forest where elk are known to roam.
This year’s aerial survey was recently completed, said one of the wildlife biologists on the project. It’s the state’s long-running effort to collect data about Michigan’s most prized game species.
“We’ve had some challenges with weather, but that’s kind of typical,” said Scott Eggeman, DNR wildlife field operations manager.
Wildlife biologists have taken to the skies every other January to count Michigan’s elk for more than two decades. The information helps regulators decide how many kill tags should be issued for the annual elk hunt, which requires hunters to enter a lottery drawing.
However, the trouble with this system of counting elk is that weather conditions aren’t always right to fly, nor to see the large animals from the fixed-wing airplanes. That’s because researchers need a sufficient blanket of snow across the landscape to see the elk, and that kind of weather has been unreliable in recent years.
In fact, patchy snow cover in 2024 caused DNR officials to shorten the aerial elk survey and make observations over fewer of the designated forest plots. That survey estimated the elk herd between 884 and 1,408 animals.
Now state officials are broadening their methods to count the wild elk population, which is primarily found in Cheboygan, Montmorency and Otsego counties.
“We are looking for alternatives that have a little bit more flexibility, can be a little bit more efficient and hopefully have greater efficacy,” said Tyler Petroelje, DNR wildlife research specialist.
The agency last year installed a network of eye-level trail cameras.
“They’re set at about one meter off the ground. So that’s really like the central body mass for an adult elk,” Petroelje said.
Last summer and fall, officials put up about 200 motion-activated trail cameras across the elk range, primarily on public lands. They are hoping to learn whether the method can be more accurate or less expensive.
“The other benefit of trail cameras is we can look at other species that may be setting off the camera. So even though the focus is on elk, we often will get good data on, say, black bear, white-tailed deer, coyotes,” Petroelje said.
He said that elk were photographed at 89 of 203 trail cameras the DNR installed. Another 18 mammal species were also photographed, including red fox, badger, raccoon, fox squirrels and more.
The DNR is partnering with the Michigan Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Michigan State University to use artificial intelligence to analyze the cache of trail camera photos collected during the last growing season. The pilot project is designed to collect data for at least three years, running through 2027.
A third survey method is being tested this year.
Another aerial survey will take place next month using infrared technology. Biologists will fly at night to capture photos of elk heat signatures, testing whether that works better than daytime efforts.
“That would be another piece of information to help kind of validate our aerial survey, or to help calibrate it,” Eggeman said. “If you have two methods to survey elk and to estimate abundance, that’s better than one, and especially if one is more precise than the other.”
Meanwhile, the DNR announced that hunters killed 153 elk during the 2025 hunting season. That’s down from the 180 elk killed in the prior year’s hunt.
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