Michigan DNR proposes extending elk hunting season to 45 days
By Joseph Buczek
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DETROIT (WWJ) — The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is considering expanding the state’s elk hunting season beginning in 2026.
The department is proposing extending both elk hunting periods in the northern Lower Peninsula. The expansion calls for two hunting periods totaling 45 days of harvest time, up from the current 21 days.
The first hunting period would run continuously over 30 days, from the second Saturday in September through the second Sunday in October. The current period comprises three four-day hunts across August and September.
The second hunting period would run 15 days, from Dec. 1 through Dec. 15. The current period runs over nine days, from Dec. 13 through Dec. 21.
The Michigan Natural Resources Commission must sign off on the proposals, which do not affect the 2025 elk hunting season.
“Shifting the period later in the year should give hunters more favorable weather conditions,” said Scott Eggeman, a field operations manager for the DNR Wildlife Division, in a statement. “And a monthlong, continuous hunting period would provide hunters with more opportunities, allow flexibility to choose when they want to hunt and help them safety and effectively target an appropriate elk by reducing the pressure on them to make a kill quickly.”
The DNR is also proposing allowing hunters 72 hours to register their elk with the department, up from the 24 hours hunters currently have.
As of January 2019, Michigan’s elk population was about 1,196, which exceeds the state’s goal population of 500 to 900 elk, according to the Michigan Wildlife Council.
The state’s herd is mostly concentrated in a 105,000-acre stretch of the northeast Lower Peninsula.
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