Elk

Step onto the hay wagon and it only takes a few minutes to understand why elk stop visitors mid-sentence. They are enormous — far bigger than a whitetail — and they move with a surprising quietness for an animal built like a linebacker.

Our herd lives on the pasture and wooded edge along the tour loop. Come in the fall and you may hear the bulls bugle — a rising, flute-like whistle that rolls across the property and is unlike any other sound in the North American woods. Come in late spring and you'll see the calves, wobbly-legged and stuck to mom's side for the first few weeks.

Elk once ranged across most of Michigan but were wiped out by habitat loss and unregulated hunting by 1875. Reintroductions in the early 20th century established today's wild herd up north. Our ranched herd gives visitors in the Thumb a chance to see a species most Michiganders never meet in person.