Cody Hinkley spent much of his youth outdoors. His childhood memories are full of adventures — exploring the wilderness, building forts and admiring the wildlife that shared his Garfield County home. 

After Hinkley graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology, he returned to the county to work with Colorado Parks and Wildlife as a wildlife technician. It was then that Hinkley faced a crossroad in his career. 

“I was doing some field work and stuff, and then I was teaching as well, so I had two paths to go down,” Hinkley said. To make his decision, he looked inward, listening to the child that loved to play outdoors. 

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“Really it was about…the little kid in me who loved growing up and looking at wildlife and so I wanted to make him proud and continue pursuing that,” Hinkley said. “I mean, I love it too, but if I could go back in time and tell him that I’m doing this, his mind would be blown.” 

Hinkley is now pursuing a Master of Science in Ecology at Western Colorado University, where he assists with a study of Colorado’s state mammal — bighorn sheep. 

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Using motion-activated cameras, the study will help determine the population demographics of a bighorn sheep herd that inhabits the Black Canyon in Gunnison National Park and the Gunnison Gorge National Recreation Area. 

Hinkley and Western Colorado University’s Master of Science in Ecology program director Madelon van de Kerk were awarded an almost $38,000 federal grant from the federal Bureau of Land Management in October to support the study. The grant covers Hinkley’s tuition and provides him with a stipend. 

“It’s a really big collaborative piece between four different groups,” Hinkley said. “So you have the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. National Parks Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Western University. It’s really a collective group of people that have been working on this project for a while.”

Over the summer, Hinkley and other project team members analyzed radio collar data from sheep collared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife to determine the optimal locations for motion-activated cameras. They placed 71 cameras in the study area to capture photos of the sheep.

The team examines photos to collect demographic data, such as sex and age, and estimate the bighorn sheep herd’s population. Hinkley noted that the final population estimate will not be available until 2026, after the team has reviewed and analyzed the photos collected throughout the summer and winter.

Currently, Hinkley and other Western Colorado University students are diligently sorting through over 100,000 photos, searching for images of bighorn sheep and identifying markers like collars and ear-tags previously placed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The cameras are currently capturing new photos for the study. 

Hinkley is happy to be part of the ongoing effort to monitor and grow Colorado’s bighorn sheep population. Despite decades of translocation efforts after the state’s bighorn sheep faced extinction in the early 1900s, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep are still included in the U.S. Forest Service’s list of “sensitive species.”

According to a January “State of the Herds” presentation by Andy Holland, a big game manager at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Colorado’s bighorn sheep population health improved from 2023 to 2024. Sheep population increased in 23 of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain herds, declined in 15 and remained stable in 33. 

However, herds continue to struggle with disease, particularly those transmitted from domestic livestock.

“I support ranching and (ranchers) belong on that landscape as much as we do, but it’s finding that balance and that border of where we can have these wild sheep thrive as well as the ranchers and domestic herds,” Hinkley said. 

In January, Hinkley received another grant to create a film about the project. The team plans to start production this summer.

“We’re going to do interviews of people who have helped, we’re going to get sweet shots of sheep in the landscape, but overall, (the film) is going to tell a story of bighorn sheep, the challenges and the problems they face, what this study is doing and why this study is important, along with other studies that are being done as well,” Hinkley said. 

Hinkley hopes that Western Colorado University can secure sufficient funding to continue the study for five more years. However, uncertainties surrounding federal funding have cast a shadow over the project’s future.

For now, Hinkley and the project team are taking it one day at a time, closely monitoring changes in federal funding that could impact the project’s trajectory.

“That’s why myself and my colleagues, we are trying really hard to push for these other grants,” Hinkley said. “I’ll never put my sword down for wildlife, we’re going to keep fighting to get money and put it back into the sheep, and that’s what it’s for.”