Michigan DNR at a Glance

DNR Mission
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state's natural resources for current and future generations.

Michigan DNR and Natural Resource Facts:

• Approximately 1,400 permanent employees and more than 1,600 seasonal employees implement over 70 programs under the supervision of DNR Director Keith Creagh and his management team.
• Michigan has 11,000 inland lakes.
• Michigan has 3,000 miles of freshwater shoreline-more than any other state in the nation.
• Michigan has more total shoreline than any state except Alaska.

Fisheries

• Michigan has 36,000 miles of rivers and streams.
• In Michigan, you're never more than six miles from great fishing.
• More than 2 million anglers fish Michigan waters each year.
• The DNR has six fish hatcheries, which produce more than 700,000 pounds of fish every year. Forty percent of all recreational fishing in Michigan depends on stocked fish, including 70% of the Great Lakes trout and salmon fishery.

Wildlife

• Michigan's two scenic peninsulas provide 8 million acres of public hunting land, including 4.5 million acres managed by DNR.
• The DNR leases several thousand acres of farmland in southern Michigan for public hunting and 2.2 million acres of private forestland in northern Michigan, enrolled as commercial forests, provide even more hunting access.
• The DNR manages 400,000 acres in more than 70 state wildlife areas, most in southern Michigan.
• The DNR manages and protects 400 species of animals, including the birds and mammals that sustain our rich hunting heritage and nongame wildlife, including threatened and endangered species.
• Michigan leads the nation in hunting white-tailed deer. More than 680,000 hunters took part in the 2008 deer seasons, spending more than 9.7 million days afield. According to DNR estimates, the total harvest from all seasons was 484,000 deer.
• Hunters also spend 2.5 million hunter-days afield in pursuit of our most popular small-game species, including the cottontail rabbit, fox squirrel, ruffed grouse and ring-necked pheasant.
• More than 60% of Michigan's residents are actively involved in viewing and photographing wildlife.

Parks and Recreation

• In Michigan, you are never more than an hour's drive from a state park or recreation area.
• Michigan's 98 state parks and recreation areas welcomed over 23 million visitors in 2008, including more than 4 million campers.
• The DNR maintains 15 Great Lakes Harbors of Refuge and 750 public launch sites.
• Michigan has more than 931,000 registered watercraft (3rd in the nation) and more than 390,000 registered snowmobiles (more than any other state).
• Michigan has more than 1,300 public boat launching sites.

Forest, Mineral and Fire Management

• The DNR manages the largest state forest system in the nation (3.9 million acres).
• Michigan is a leader in rails-to-trails, maintaining more than 6,200 miles of groomed snowmobile trails.
• Michigan's 145 state forest campgrounds offer 3,000 rustic campsites.
• Widely differing forest cover and ownership patterns throughout Michigan provide unique management challenges and opportunities. For example, 90% of our population resides in southern Michigan, while 90% of the Upper Peninsula is forested.
• In addition to managing 12% of the state's total land area, the DNR manages 6 million acres of mineral estate and leases rights to explore for oil and gas.
• Nearly 50,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in Michigan-about 12,000 are active.
• The development of oil, gas and other minerals on state-owned lands contributed more than $67 million to the Natural Resources Trust Fund during the 2008 fiscal year. Without the Trust Fund, no additional parks and recreation lands would be acquired.

"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others." Theodore Roosevelt