You've probably looked at sheep tag odds and thought — that's never happening. The numbers are brutal. Most states are handing out a handful of tags to thousands of applicants, and the herds aren't exactly booming. But there's a population in the Black Canyon of Colorado that just got its first hunt tag in over 80 years, and a wildlife researcher who's been tracking every sheep in that canyon for the last two years using 71 trail cameras. The results are pretty interesting.

Cody Hinkley is wrapping up his master's research at Western Colorado University, and his thesis asks a simple but important question: can trail cameras replace expensive, dangerous helicopter surveys to monitor bighorn sheep populations? If the answer is yes, it changes how wildlife managers across the West track herds — and potentially how tags get allocated.

In this episode, we break down how the mark-resight method works, what the population data actually shows for this herd, and what the disease threatening sheep herds nationwide would take to solve. We also get into the honest reality of what it would take — population-wise — for a non-resident to have a realistic shot at drawing a tag in their lifetime.

Highlights:

• How trail cameras can be used to estimate wildlife population size and sex ratios — and why it matters for tag allocation

• Why this Colorado Black Canyon herd is an anomaly — growing when most sheep herds are struggling

• The preliminary data: ~80 sheep, and more rams than ewes, with implications for future tag numbers

• Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (MOVI) — the disease from domestic sheep that is the #1 management threat to bighorn herds nationwide

• What "full curl" means, when rams reach maturity, and how wildlife managers think about harvestable surplus

• Realistic advice for hunters who want a sheep tag someday — including which states to watch and why Colorado is worth a closer look

• Why whitetail hunters can actually run a mini population survey on their own property using the same science

If you want to follow Cody's research when it's published, keep an eye on his work coming out of Western Colorado University — he's planning to make it publicly accessible. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the Drawn West podcast so you don't miss episodes like this one.

https://www.instagram.com/codymhinkley/

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