10+ Wildlife biology careers you should know about (& salaries)

hey everyone and welcome back to my Channel today I'm going to be talking about 10 Wildlife careers that you might not have known about but you should know about if you're interested in going to the field of wildlife biology so before we begin I'm going to go through some career ideas for wildlife folks I'm also going to talk about the sort of Duties and the places you would work at in these careers and also the average salary for each of these jobs keep in mind salary is going to be based on US dollars in a North American audience sort of focus so if you are outside of North America take these salary ranges with a grain of salt I've made these sorts of videos before I made an environmental science career ideas video I've actually made a few of those so if you're interested in seeing more videos on wildlife biology and environmental science hit the Subscribe button down below to support my channel without any further Ado let's get on with the wildlife career ideas so the first career idea I have is a wildlife technician so a wildlife technician undertakes while life surveys and research Wildlife technicians will collect biological samples undertake field work and also prepare technical reports and field data collection based off of what they saw in the field this may often be called a research assistant in many jobs and they might work with a more senior biologist or a graduate student to help undertake research so the minimum required education to be a wildlife technician is technically a two-year degree you will still see those occasionally but it's starting to become the new normal that a four-year bachelor's degree in a wildlife field is required to become a wildlife technician this is often a common entry-level starter job for many Wildlife biologists the average salary of a wildlife technician is around 40 to 45 000 a year so that comes in under the some of the jobs I'm going to talk about going forward and the second of that being Wildlife biologists so wildlife biologist is a little bit of a step up from the wildlife technician position Wildlife biologists generally you know it's hard to speak generally because Wildlife biologists can do so much different work but they mostly plan Implement and manage Wildlife surveys and research Wildlife biologists use the information gathered in Wildlife surveys and research to make informed recommendations for wildlife management and also just the real world conservation of species at risk All Over The World Wildlife biologists also act as technical subject matter experts and as experts they might work for government natural resource agencies Consulting companies construction projects hunting organizations or acting as a expert researcher or biologist in the non-profit world the minimum education to become a wildlife biologist is pretty much always going to be the minimum Wildlife bachelor's degree however it's starting to become the new normal that Wildlife biologists need a master's degree or even a PhD in some positions to move up Wildlife biologists make on average around 53 to 73 000 a year I know that's a huge range but it is going to change based on what industry you're working on how much experience you have and where in the United States or in Canada that you live the next job I'm going to talk about is wildlife rehabilitators so a lot of people when they think of wildlife biologists they might think of Wildlife rehabilitators and these are the people that are having that Hands-On contact with Wildlife they often respond to calls for wildlife rescue so if you see an injured animal in your area sometimes you will be put in contact with a wildlife rehabilitator they may also mostly focus on Hands-On care of the animal in a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center or as part of a zoo or aquarium they may also participate in reintroduction campaigns and there is also some Crossover with tour operators that which I'll talk about a little bit later in the video where they might have some customer client interaction depending on the facility there is no minimum standard requirement for wildlife rehabilitators however I sometimes see postings requiring a bachelor's degree but any sort of Science Education or vet tech type of experience is an education is hugely valuable for applying and Landing those wildlife rehabilitator jobs so sometimes you get to cuddle with animals but here's the downside many of these jobs to be completely honest are unpaid yeah you heard that right a lot of volunteer positions if you'd manage to land a paid Wildlife rehabilitator job your salary is looking at anywhere from twenty thousand dollars to around forty thousand dollars next job stepping up from Wildlife rehabilitator let's talk about Wildlife veterinarian so Wildlife veterinarians they can do a whole lot of different things but mainly they will examine and treat Wildlife for illness or injury research Wildlife disease and look at how it spreads through Wildlife populations both in the wild or in a zoo Sanctuary type of setting they might also work with researchers and Wildlife biologists to sedate animals take blood samples fur samples install those Wildlife collars that you often see on a lot of the wild bears and cougars and they will also lead Wildlife Research focused generally around the idea of wildlife health and healthy populations of wildlife so to be a Wildlife veterinarian typically in North America you're going to need an undergraduate degree and also a doctor of veterinary medicine degree and with that once you get out of your doctor of veterinary medicine School you will often need to do either an internship or a residency which could last around three to four years specializing in Wildlife specific care when you're in your residency you often will not be making the full salary of a Wildlife veterinarian and you will also need to get your state or provincial license depending on where you are before you can become a full-fledged Wildlife veterinarian and once you get to that point salaries can be anywhere from 60 to 95 000 another huge range I'm sorry to do that but it really does depend where you work I I did look at the average across the United States and the average for veterinarian for wildlife was 87 000 a year next job is wildlife conservation manager so a wildlife conservation manager is often a little bit less work into the field and more in the office and you would be managing endangered species populations and managing large conservation projects you might also lead habitat restoration work at like a non-profit or a government organization but basically you're focused around managing all of the aspects of wildlife conservation and it's not just the science there are so many funding considerations marketing non-profit networking that you have to deal with as a wildlife conservation manager so this requires really good people skills fundraising skills and a broad skill set Beyond just the science your minimum education is a bachelor's degree and like like many of these career Fields it's starting to become a new normal that we see people with a minimum of a master's degree for these positions the average salary in the United States for a wildlife conservation manager ranges between 60 and 80 000 however being a conservation manager isn't often a job you do as your first job outside of school so that little bit of a higher salary reflects the fact that you're probably going to only land that job after at least five years of experience as maybe another job in here next job is fisheries biologists so Fisheries biologist is really similar to Wildlife biologists but I'm going to go through some of these more specialist careers because sometimes they require a little bit of a different skill set than a general wildlife biologist so Fisheries biologists will develop Implement and review studies of fish and aquatic organisms while Fisheries biologists can work in coastal and marine ecosystems they also often work in freshwater ecosystems a lot of Fisheries biologists will often work in population management and estimating populations of different aquatic species based on variety of factors such as harvesting rate they also provide their data to help inform the management of fisheries and Aquatic ecosystems the minimum education for a Fisheries biologist is going to be a bachelor's degree with the same thing I'm saying on all these master's degrees quickly becoming the new Norm here and often Fisheries biologists will want to get a degree closer to something like Fisheries biology or at least getting some internship and experience right relating around specifically Fisheries work the average salary for a Fisheries biologist is quite similar to wildlife biologist 53 to 73 000 a year on average let's go into another specialty let's go into Ornithology so Ornithology is basically relating to being like a bird biologist so you would be planning and implementing bird surveys such as breeding bird surveys bird Point counts and also Nest searches so you would need a really strong knowledge of species identity application both Visual and auditory of birds and knowledge about nesting Behavior you might also record and analyze sound recordings to identify species in a specific area and then finally pulling all that research together to create reports and recommendations and those help inform government policies natural resource development non-profit recommendations or Ornithology research so the minimum requirement is a bachelor's degree however with these specialist type of biologist positions I think it's a little bit more common to see a Masters or even a PhD degree required especially as you get into the academic world salary for ornithologists is around fifty to seventy thousand dollars it seems counterproductive to say that some of these specialist wildlife jobs actually might pay a little less than generalist jobs however that also reflects the fact there isn't a lot of specialist jobs a lot of times having the broad skill set is what higher paying government or Consulting companies want however you can still find and land specialist jobs but they are quite competitive sometimes just because there is a lower amount of them and often with ornithologists they might work at those lower paying non-profit organizations or even working directly Hands-On with birds which brings the average salary down a little bit all right next job is a habitat biologist so habitat biologist is similar to Wildlife biologists but instead we're focusing in on wildlife habitat rather than studying a specific species habitat biologists will often complete surveys of wildlife habitat to record vegetation tree snags Woody debris and other habitat characteristics that might impact how an animal thrives in each habitat they might also work in rangeland management and research for livestock grazing so habitat biologist might work for Consulting companies and to help inform Development and Construction projects they might work for government organizations to manage the habitat that they have in that government jurisdiction remediation and improving the landscape that might have been damaged from an oil spill or construction and also forestry and agriculture to be a habitat biologist generally you're going to stick with a minimum of a bachelor's degree with a master's degree becoming quite normal the average salary for this job is around 53 000 to 73 000 a year okay next job stay with me here because we're going to talk about some fun ones Wildlife interpreter so this one is a little bit different we're shifting out of like that technical biologist type of role and instead going into more of an education and interpretation naturalist type of job developing and carrying out Wildlife visitor tours and interpretive talks so you might work with a campground for example a natural Center in a wildlife preserve and you might identify species and explain to visitors what threats those species face you might also be greeting clients and doing a little bit more of the customer service aspect of it too so there is no minimum education however the more Science Education you have the better so having a bachelor's degree or a two-year diploma might help you land some of these jobs however the lower education requirements also kind of lead to a lower average salary of thirty thousand to forty thousand dollars a year next job in the fun jobs section is a wildlife host so similar to Wildlife rehabilitator you might think that Wildlife biologists do this type of stuff that Steve Irwin or other Wildlife TV hosts do so this is its own job entirely and doesn't have a ton of overlap as being a wildlife biologist in research for example so a wildlife host will work with TV channels or movies or documentaries to help present Wildlife information and in an interesting and informative way to the viewers so this isn't geared necessarily towards Communication in a research perspective but rather making things interesting and engaging to someone who might not have the same level of wildlife education as some of these other jobs you'd also help develop TV shows and social media programs relating around wildlife and so technically there's no minimum requirement to be a TV show host but you will often find that some of the new channels are wanting people to at least have a bachelor's degree in wildlife biology but sometimes there even is people who have phds who help run some of these shows and the salary range okay wait for it this is the biggest range I have out of all them thirty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars plus so as you can probably imagine this totally depends on how big you are as a host how popular you are and how much your rates are depending on the type of experience and exposure that you already have so there's a huge salary range here so the last job I'm going to talk about is marine biologists so a marine biologist the marine environment is huge and it's just as big as the terrestrial environment so you can study all aspects abiotic or biotic of the marina ecosystem but we're going to talk about marine biologists who focus in on Wildlife so marine biologists study and gather data in the marine environment they will also design and Implement sampling and research plans similar to terrestrial Wildlife biologists so marine biologists work with a bunch of really interesting equipment nowadays technology is great you can also use equipment to record and measure Wildlife communication movements GPS location and many more and also providing data to create research projects that help inform Marine management fisheries management government policies or academic research so marine biology yeah technically you can be a marine biologist with a bachelor's degree but this is one of the fields that I find the Masters in the PHD is so common the salary range for a marine biologist ranges anywhere from 145 000 to 85 000 depending on the organization that you're working for let me know in the comment section down below which of these careers you are most interested in and if you are wanting to get into a wildlife career you are already in a wildlife career or you're just thinking about it for the future let me know in the comment section down below if you are interested in supporting my videos helping people learn more about Wildlife Conservation ecology and sustainable living click the Subscribe button down below to help support my channel and I also have a patreon page which I will link below where I have a variety of different perks for folks that want to build that larger community in wildlife biology and ask questions a bit more directly to myself cheers thank you guys and I will see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Kristina Lynn

Views: 115,057

Keywords: wildlife, wildlife biology, wildlife job ideas, wildlife career, animal jobs, wildlife career ideas, wildlife job, ornithologist, fisheries biologist, wildlife rehabilitation, wildlife rehabilitator, wildlife vet, wildlife veterinarian, conservation manager, habitat, wildlife tv host, marine biologist, marine biology, zoology, wildlife biologist, Wildlife biology careers, environmental science, environmental science careers, wildlife biology major, job ideas, career advice

Id: AK2Onqx-ctM

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020