Can the following equation be written as an exponential equation?

Question

I have read a sample word equation to represent an exponential function, where I was supposed to identify if this equation was exponential or not. I have determined that it is exponential, but would like to be able to write this as a function. The word equation is a follows: "Every year the number of elk in a country increases by $12\%$ from the previous year." I came up with the function: $n=n_x(.12)+n$", where $n=$ number of Elk, and $n_x=$ the updated number of Elk as the year progresses. I know it's not neat, and I know there is a way better way to write but I am not sure. Thanks in advance.