Kevin Hurley

As Vice President of Conservation – Thinhorn Programs for WSF, Kevin Hurley brings over 40 years of experience as a wildlife biologist, with wild sheep, particularly bighorn sheep, being a huge part of his personal and professional life for the past 38 years. Prior to joining WSF’s staff in February 2011, he spent three decades as a wildlife biologist for the State of Wyoming Game & Fish Department (WGFD), retiring as the statewide bighorn sheep program coordinator. During his final years working for WGFD, Kevin chaired the Wild Sheep Working Group for the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and has remained an active member representing WSF for the past seven+ years. During his career with WGFD, he survived two plane crashes (Dec. 1991 and Aug. 2002), both while surveying pronghorn. The resulting injuries changed his life: While not able to physically do the things he had done before, he learned to compensate with a tireless work ethic as a wildlife professional.

Dedicated to the future of wild sheep, he completed his $100,000 commitment as a WSF Marco Polo Society member (#24).Kevin has been a WSF member since 1981, became a Life Member (#794) in 1997, and a Summit Life Member (#23) in 2014. Kevin is currently a proud Life Member of 15 WSF Chapters & Affiliates. His allegiance to WSF began in his college years—using proceeds from the Wyoming Governor’s bighorn sheep licenses, FNAWS (later WSF) was the major funding source for his graduate studies at the University of Wyoming, where he studied the Trout Peak bighorn sheep herd, located between Cody and Yellowstone National Park.

In his hunting life, Kevin fired his first gun when he was 25 years old. In a bit of a twist on typical situations, Kevin was mentored by a younger buddy (and lifelong friend!) and learned how to hunt after moving to northern Idaho in 1978. He later went on to earn his FNAWS by taking a Wyoming bighorn sheep in 1997; an Alaskan Dall’s in 2011; a Yukon Stone sheep in 2012; and a southern Baja desert ram in 2014. Kevin notes that he had his only son Kyle with him on three of his four successful ram hunts. Today, Kyle is a U. Wyoming grad, top-notch mechanical engineer, accomplished archer, WSF Summit Life Member, and Life member of both the Idaho and Wyoming Chapters of WSF. Kevin accompanied Kyle on two successful hunts in fall 2017, for Dall’s sheep in the Yukon, and for mountain goat in northern British Columbia.