Jack Kirkley, Ph.D

Jack completed his masters and doctoral degrees in Biology-Ecology at Utah State University in 1985, focusing his research on nestling physiology and the associated parental care behaviors of Red-tailed Hawks and Swainson’s Hawks.  He began his teaching career in the Fall of 1985, as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Biology at Western Montana College, an institution that was eventually renamed the University of Montana – Western, where he became a tenured Professor.  Jack retired in 2021 and he is presently an Emeritus Professor of Biology.

During his teaching career, Jack taught a variety of zoology courses including Survey of Montana Wildlife and Habitats, Ornithology, Mammalogy, Evolution, and Human Anatomy and Physiology. As an ornithologist who specializes in the study of birds of prey, Jack has, from 1993 to the present time, conducted a long-term study of the ecology of American Goshawks in southwestern Montana, having radio-tagged over 70 goshawks to study their seasonal movements.  Jack also studied the physiological ecology of long-distance migration in Swainson’s Hawks, which led him to spend three Octobers on the coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico to discover their likely “refueling” method for powering their migration to Argentina.  Also, in the summers of 2011-2013, Jack conducted raptor surveys along several major roadways in central Yellowstone National Park to document the locations of raptor nesting territories, as compared to the places where he had mapped the occurrence of those same species in the summers of 1976-77 when he was working as an NPS seasonal laborer.  More recently, Jack studied the behavior and movements of Great-tailed Grackles, an extremely rare bird species in Montana, documenting the only known instances of nesting of this species in Montana to date, as well as the first DNA-confirmed hybridization of this species with the Common Grackle.

During his 36 years of service at Montana Western, Jack had also organized and led a variety of natural history/bird watching tours to international locations, such as Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Galapagos. Jack also served as an international visiting professor, having taught zoology, ecology and ornithology courses at The University of Belize and at St. George’s University in Grenada.  Among his many kinds of public/community service, Jack was a long-time member and leader in both local and statewide Audubon organizations, and he has continued to be an activist and a Wilderness Walks leader for the Montana Wilderness Association (now Wild Montana).  Jack also continues to participate in a local collaborative regarding the management of our federal public lands and he publicly expresses his perspectives on environmental and social issues. He and his wife, Brenda, try to keep tabs on the lives of the seven sons and two daughters who comprise their blended family, which now also includes 13 grandchildren. He can be contacted through his campus email address and home phone.