New Student-led Study to Look at Health of Black Canyon Bighorn Herd

BY SETH MENSING  |  University Communications Manager

 

The bighorn sheep is Colorado’s state mammal and one of the West’s most iconic species, but their numbers have long been in decline across the state. A variety of factors are to blame, including competition and disease from domestic sheep or cattle, and habitat loss. As a result, the Bureau of Land Management considers bighorns a ‘sensitive’ species that needs special attention to avoid a listing under the Endangered Species Act.

To learn more about the local population and its vulnerabilities, Western Colorado University Master of Science in Ecology program director Madelon van de Kerk and graduate student Cody Hinkley were awarded a $37,677 first-year grant from the Bureau of Land Management for what could be a five-year study of the bighorn sheep herd in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, 40 miles west of Western’s campus.

“This grant includes tuition and additional financial support for my current MSE student Cody, as well as two more graduate students in the near future,” van de Kerk said. “As a small graduate program at a public university, we can’t always guarantee our students any funding, but we always work hard to find funding for our amazing students, and in this case we were successful.”

For the study, van de Kerk and Hinkley propose setting 100 camera traps and using data from radio collars and ear tags to study the size and demographics of the bighorn herd, which was re-established after being completely wiped out in the late 1960s. They also hope to learn how the herd uses the National Park and neighboring Gunnison Gorge National Recreation Area in different seasons.

The study started in the summer of 2024 and will continue at least into the summer of 2026, when the timeline could be extended further, depending on funding and the data needs of wildlife biologists at the BLM and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

According to the grant proposal, the presence of bighorn sheep in the Gunnison Gorge Wilderness, along with opportunities to view and possibly hunt them, is directly related to the natural quality of the area’s wilderness character.

“Working on a population dynamics study of Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep is a dream come true and one that would make my younger self grin from ear to ear,” Hinkley said. “That’s the main reason I’m so passionate about this work; I know that adventurous, wildlife-loving kid would be proud. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and tell him, just to see his reaction.”

 

M.S. in Ecology Program