The shooting suspect knew investigators were closing in. The suspect tried to dispose of all the evidence, but when law enforcement officers showed up with a search warrant, they found trace amounts of blood on the suspect's clothing. Authorities sent a sample to the lab for DNA analysis. After the lab came up with a definite match to samples taken at the crime scene, officers made their arrest.

Sounds like an episode of television's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" doesn't it?

But in this case, the shooting victim was a bull elk and the authorities were Michigan Conservation Officers.

"DNA analysis was even used to identify an eastern box turtle in the state's largest investigation into the illegal trade of protected Michigan reptiles," said Detective Lieutenant Wade Hamilton, supervisor of the Special Investigations Unit for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

"An undercover detective spent two years infiltrating a close-knit group of illegal traders, eventually participating in numerous transactions with these dealers who often resold the animals for an instant profit," Hamilton said. "Samples of a turtle's DNA enabled us to make our case."

But the "CSI" aspect of DNA analysis is just one way the DNR is using genetic studies to advance wildlife management.

Dwayne Etter, a wildlife research biologist who works at the Rose Lake Wildlife Research Station, said the agency is using DNA to estimate bear populations in the northern Lower Peninsula.

Typically, biologists use mark-and-recapture studies to estimate animal populations. Individuals are trapped, marked and released. The percentage of marked specimens that subsequently are recaptured helps biologists estimate the population.

"The problem with the traditional studies is when you're talking about a species like black bear, it's difficult; it takes a lot of time and it's dangerous," Etter said. "Getting a DNA sample is the same as marking it, but we can collect the DNA non-invasively."

A Michigan State University researcher devised a way of collecting hair samples by suspending baits off the ground and surrounding the area with barbed wire, so bears have to go over or under the wire to get to the bait. DNR biologists adapted the technique to estimate the state's bear population. Typically, the barbed wire snags some hair. DNA samples are taken from the hair follicles.

When bears are harvested by hunters, the DNR pulls a tooth at the check station. The tooth contains DNA, which can be checked against the DNA collected from the hair samples. The harvested bears serve as the "recapture" portion of the study, which can be completed without handling the bears.

"You couldn't possibly set enough traps to capture the number of animals needed to do a population estimate for the entire northern Lower Peninsula," Etter said. "Setting up 240 hair snares across the region allows you to cover a larger area a lot more efficiently than hauling traps around."

Although the technique works well with black bears -- animals that are easily attracted to bait -- it hasn't been as effective on other low-density species (say, bobcats) that are more trap-shy.

Similarly, DNA population studies aren't feasible for animals with dense populations, such as deer, because of the expense involved.

"It costs about $40 to extract and amplify the DNA and that's not including the expense of setting up the hair snares," Etter said. "With populations of 50 animals per square mile, you could have thousands of samples. It would get very expensive very quickly."

Nonetheless, Etter said he's excited about using DNA for population estimates.

"It's cutting edge," he said. "We're probably the first state that's ever accomplished this on a broad scale. We're actually estimating populations and, in my opinion, they're fairly accurate."

Research biologist Dean Beyer out of Marquette is participating in a DNA study to help determine the taxonomy of Michigan's wolves. There's an ongoing debate in the scientific community about whether gray wolves and eastern wolves are different sub-species. One school of thought is that gray wolves are an Old World species, while eastern wolves evolved in North America, diverging from coyotes some 300,000 years ago.

Beyer is sending DNA samples from Michigan wolves to a Canadian university that is attempting to clarify the genetics of gray wolves, eastern wolves and coyotes in the Great Lakes region.

"We're simply trying to see where the wolves in the Upper Peninsula fit in," Beyer said. "It's complicated stuff. We're just in the beginning stages."

Jean Fierke, a lab scientist at the Wildlife Disease Lab, does a lot of the extracting and analyzing of DNA. She and lab technician Kristine Brown recently completed a study of feather samples taken from woodcock chicks by volunteers who band the hatchlings in the spring. The idea was to see if the chicks could be sexed from DNA in their feathers. Turns out they can. And the implications to management are significant.

"This has never been done before," said Al Stewart, the DNR's upland game bird specialist. "We band more woodcock chicks than anywhere else in the world and we use that information to help manage the woodcock population. "One of the shortfalls of our woodcock banding effort has been the inability to determine the males from the females at the chick stage. They look alike. We can tell how old chicks are by measuring the bill, but you can't tell the sex."

Although the sex is easily determined when the birds reach adulthood, no one knows if there's disproportionate mortality between the sexes before they reach maturity.

"When you get your band returns, it's important to know what you banded to begin with," Stewart said. "Using DNA to determine a chick's sex is a major breakthrough."

DNA may prove to be an important component of understanding wildlife diseases, too. When a deer turned up positive for tuberculosis in Shiawassee County after last hunting season, DNR staffers ran DNA tests to see if it was a local deer or if it had been killed in the TB area and illegally tagged with an antlerless tag from Shiawassee County.

The results were inconclusive, said DNR veterinarian Steve Schmitt, because the data base is still being developed.

"This is just in its infancy," Schmitt said. "Even 15 years ago, we wouldn't have considered DNA analysis that important to wildlife management. But there isn't any doubt it's going to become increasingly important in the future."