anyone in the wildlife management field?

[paintballdude902]

hey guys
im goin to school for wildlife management and i was just wondering how many of you work in the field?

what are your daily duties?


any one know of any summer internships?

 

[exbiologist]

Used to be. And your daily duties vary wildly, depending on the job itself. It's a tough field to get a permanent job, even with a master's degree.

 

[paintballdude902]

yeah i know

im just looking for an entry level position pretty much any where.

i figured this would be a half way decent way of doing some networking

 

[schlockinz]

ODWC has an internship/summer aide program. I did it once, the pay is pretty piss poor (I got $7.50/hr) and you are capped at 40hrs.

Not sure how it'll go this year with budgeting considerations. You might be able to find an application at www.wildlifedepartment.com

I'd imagine that fisheries may be more willing to take someone for help/cheap labor. You might want to talk to those guys across the US if that'd be your cup of tea.

 

[MCgunner]

Used to be. And your daily duties vary wildly, depending on the job itself. It's a tough field to get a permanent job, even with a master's degree.

No kiddin'. In school (Texas A&M) we were on a Wildlife Biology Asso field trip to a WMA up in north Texas. A biologist there advised me that there were 10 times more jobs in fisheries management than wildlife, so as a sophomore, I switched my degree plan. I shoulda taken more math because I didn't realize at the time that anything multiplied by zero is zero, even 10. ROFL!

I made my living in the chemical industry. I worked in an environmental lab at a chemical plant where I retired from after 21 years. That's as close as I got to my degree. I did get to do some bioassay work and the limnology course and all my chem electives came in real handy. Ain't like I wasted the money, I guess, and college is a good experience, lifelong friends if nothing else. After thinkin' about it over the years, I made a lot better money. My wife worked for the state (social worker, CPS) so I still get some state benefits. I figure it's better to go fishing and do what I want to do when I want to do it than have to go out in freezing weather to run gill nets or a sample trawl. Working outdoors CAN get uncomfortable. Most of the biologists I've worked with in school, though, sent the tech out to do that stuff while they sat around drinking coffee in the lab working on their research papers.

 

[MCgunner]

I did a summer internship with TP&W. Was the first year they started it and it's still going. There was no pay when I did it, just a problems course paper I got credit for and I got to keep all the fish I caught in the gill nets. That was worth the effort, I reckon. I did that half a summer, actually, then went to A&M's Ft Crockett campus in Galveston to take population dynamics and marine ichthyology. That was a really fun summer and I loved the course work.

 

[MCgunner]

Where's Z at? He works for an environmental contracting/consulting outfit and is an Aggie WFS grad, I think. These firms do stuff like impact studies, work for big ranches and such stuff. There's one that samples over at Alcoa (mercury superfund site), runs traps and lines over there. I've talked to those guys before when I was fishing out there. There are private contractors like that now days that were just sorta getting started when I was in school. All started with Nixon and the EPA in the 70s. I graduated in 1975.

 

[microtus]

I have a BS in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University in 1989. I had three positions with the USFS and a year of volunteer work for the Cal. Dept of F & G.

The USFS jobs were in Sequoia NF, Mt. Hood NF and Tahoe NF. When the funding ends on a project it's time to move on to another. Chances are that it isn't gong to be at the same NF you are currently working. There were other job opportunities at the time in Florida, Texas and California, but there was a catch.

I married just before graduation and it wasn't fair to my wife to continually move from place to place for work. She had gone to college to be a teacher and being on the move just wasn't gong to work.

Now for the really frustrating part. While working for the USFS there were always permanent full time positions posted but I was not even allowed to apply for them. In order for a person to apply for those positions, they needed to already be a full time permanent employee. Requirements usually included a Masters or above and 5-10 years of experience :banghead:

With that said, and a complete turn around. The final blow came while working on the Tahoe NF. We shared an area of the SO with the fisheries group. They had three full time permanent employees, all with close to 20 years of experience. One individual retired and they hired a gal right out of college, with NO experience, to be the boss of the other two.

I applied for a position with Cal. Dept. of F & G the following year and following the testing etc I placed well but didn't get the position (they were hiring 1 person with roughly 1,200 applicants). Shortly after that I blew my shoulder out and LEO type positions were out of the question.

I ended up being a High School teacher for 6 years, retail management for 2 years, electrician for 11 years and currently work in the data/telecommunications field. That Wildlife Management degree really worked out well for me

If you are single and don't mind relocating for a number of years until you become established then I see it as a viable career choice. If you hope to work for the government, be prepared to do a lot of seasonal work and or filling of temporary jobs. The USFWS or BLM might be different but there were few to any jobs available at the time I was in the filed. Times may have changed.

As others have posted, there might be something in the private sector. I had an in with a private environmental group but turned it down. It had omething to do with suing everybody and every species in sacred. Guns are bad.

My roommate in college has done well with a Watershed management degree of some sort. He did a lot of moving around as well but last I herd, was settled down in the state of Washington. A lot of the environmental concerns today are around water quality. It might be worth a look.

A quick google search turned up this: http://wfsc.tamu.edu/jobboard/

 

[~z]

MC, you caught me, I came late to the party today.
To answer PBD’s questions, I work in the env/eco consulting field, some of that involves wildlife management. Strictly wildlife jobs are typically hard to come by and the hiring pool is typically both deep and wide. Folks tend to survive by specializing and becoming an expert in a particular area. Me, I’m more of a generalist with specific interests which is another way to survive. I spent several years dealing with wetlands, sea grass, and land and water related impacts relative to all forms of development. I do much of my work on the international front these days dealing with migratory animals and T&E issues in support of the energy industry.

I enjoy consulting as it gives me an opportunity to solve problems and steer progress. It puts me in the great outdoors frequently. My wildlife ecology degree is a tool in my toolbox that doesn’t collect much rust. It is, however not a strict wildlife management job.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or PM, if you want a sustainable career that allows you to use the tools you are developing look into consulting and take classes on regulatory requirements (CWA, Section 404, etc)

~z

 

[MCgunner]

As others have posted, there might be something in the private sector. I had an in with a private environmental group but turned it down. It had omething to do with suing everybody and every species in sacred. Guns are bad.

In school, I learned that there were two types in WFS. There were the traditional country boy outdoors types like me and there were the tree huggers. The two do NOT get along. The tree hugger types were, at that time, a new install and the professors would make 1 hour lectures on the difference between conservationists and preservationists and how conservation was good and why and how preservation could be quite detrimental. Well, it's been 35 or 40 years now. I'm guessing many of those professors are tree huggers from my years in school, now. That's not really a good thing IMHO.

I spent many an argument with morons that wanted to do some kind of dickey bird research, not just game species. I would explain to them where the money came from and why. They always thought it was such a travesty that the game departments cared about whitetail and not the marsh wren or some crap. These people, IMHO, lacked intelligence, shouldn't be in the field in the first place. They should have studied in some other area of biology if they couldn't wrap their minds around game management. But, that's just MHO.