Career As a Naturalist

CAREER AS A

NATURALIST

Institute Research Number 371 ISBN 1-58511-371-9

CAREER AS A

NATURALIST WILDLIFE CONSERVATION PROFESSIONALS THE RED CRABS OF CHRISTMAS ISLAND, JUST NORTH OF AUSTRALIA, HAVE ALWAYS

taken the same route for spawning. They go by instinct; swarming over the forest floor and the rocks in their path, aiming for the sea to deposit their eggs in the water just past the shoreline, and then hurrying back before the waves can drown them. They’re land crabs and can’t swim. The crabs even crawl over the photographer who stands in their path, knee-deep in a living tide of crustaceans. He has to fight off his rising panic even though he knows that they’re not attacking him. Even so, it’s not easy to resist the urge to swat them away. They pinch the legs of his jeans and t-shirt as they climb over him. He’s just another obstacle and they’re just on the move, like they have been long before people arrived. For the crabs, everything is the same as it has always been. But it isn’t the same. They have to cross a road to get to the beach. In fact, they have to cross several roads. It’s not the first time in their lives, either. When they hatched in the sea, the lucky few that weren’t eaten by larger predators had to crawl inland. The young crabs turned the city streets into a strange red river, befuddling the cats and dogs that pawed at the wiggling flow. Now the crabs are adults and they cross again to lay eggs, some narrowly missed by the tires of rushing cars. They’ll make it to the shore and replace themselves with the next generation. Other crabs aren’t so lucky, and the road they traveled is covered with big red splotches. People try not to hit them, but there are so many that it’s impossible not to crush a few. The surviving crabs then cannibalize the remains of the dead because they need the protein. Getting to the ocean and back uses all the energy they’ve got. There’s another human who understands what the crabs are doing, and like the photographer, this is a naturalist – a ranger on Christmas Island. This person is out in the middle of the road next to a sign that asks motorists to be patient and to drive slowly to keep from hitting the animals. The ranger also tries to herd the crabs across the road when 2

traffic slows down. Wearing big rubber boots, the ranger shoos them along, trying to save the lives of crabs that can’t understand what is being done to help them live. This is just one scenario of what happens when humans and animals live in a place where either humans didn’t used to live – or where they live a very different kind of life than they used to. Although people have been on this particular island longer than anyone can remember, they didn’t used to have cars to get from place to place. They didn’t have to hurry to get to work or quickly run errands. Fortunately, the crabs aren’t an endangered species and a kind of balance exists. But in other places, the solutions are not as easy as slowing down the speeding cars or temporarily closing roads. How will co-existence happen? Can it happen? Should it happen? These might be questions you ask yourself, and this might be what you want to do with your life: to help find the balance between humans who change the environment of the planet, and the other animals that must live with the changes.

BEGIN YOUR QUEST TODAY ONE THING YOU CAN DO TODAY, IMMEDIATELY, IS TO START LOOKING AT ANIMALS. IT

doesn’t matter whether you live in the city, the suburbs, or the country. What kinds of animals live near you? Bats and birds? Squirrels? Don’t forget pets and insects!

Do they behave differently at different times of the year? What do they eat? You can even keep a log, like a journal or diary, and record what you see. Not only will it be fun to read later on, but also you will be training yourself in an important scientific technique: direct observation. Look at the free map distributed by the US Fish and Wildlife of the Wildlife Refuge System. You can obtain it at their Web site http://refugs.fws.gov. These refuges are all over the country and are staffed by conservation professionals. Some have visitors’ centers and will give tours. Call one close to your home and take advantage of the opportunity to learn why the refuge is unique and important. Watch nature programs on television. Shows like the National Geographic specials (which can be rented from many video stores), Nature, and Nova are all broadcast on public television and some cable stations. Watch Animal Planet. Some programs will get you hooked on wildlife, and the conservationists, explorers, and photographers who work 3

all over the world will amaze you. These programs are entertaining but more importantly, they teach you something. Go to the library or your local bookstore and read magazines. Publications like Nature Conservancy have articles on current topics in animal protection and conservation. Information about endangered wildlife shows up in the international sections of your local newspapers. Start reading the paper every day (or glance at the headlines). Once you start looking for it, information will pop up everywhere!

HISTORY OF THE CAREER SINCE THE RISE OF MAMMALS ON PLANET EARTH, HUMANS HAVE SHARED LIVING

space, competed, and sometimes lost ground to other animals. Some early hominid fossil skulls found in caves on the African continent show evidence of fatal attack. There are puncture wounds on the forehead, marking the spot where big cats got a grip on their prey to drag it to the top of a tree for eating, just like the chimpanzees are eaten today by leopards. As humans evolved from hunted to hunter, they began making representations of animals. The caves of Altimara in Spain have some of the finest examples of Paleolithic (Stone Age) art in the world. These delicately rendered paintings show wild horses and bison so well that the species can be matched to fossil remains. But no one knows exactly why these paintings were made with such skill and care. Were they prayers for a good hunt? Or did the artists simply want to draw the life they saw around them; creatures like themselves and yet not like themselves? It isn’t known for sure when people started to practice some kind of animal conservation. Perhaps hunters in prehistoric times understood the need for selective hunting to keep animal populations healthy. Religion and other beliefs often affected human relations with animals. Hinduism prohibits the killing and eating of animals entirely. In Japan, the Emperor crabs have shell backs that resemble the human face. Fishermen, finding them in their nets, throw the crustaceans back in the ocean rather than harvesting them for food. Other more deliberate forms of conservation arose in the institution of game preserves established by royalty for their hunting pleasure. In Europe, these hunting preserves could cover many miles. Poaching the local lord’s deer was a crime with severe penalties.

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In Colonial times in this country, the government in England imposed hunting laws on the American Colonists (which were ignored). America was a big country and seemed to have limitless resources, from the trees to the animals in the fields, forests, and rivers. While Native Americans had always hunted for food and shelter, the impact of colonization by Europeans was huge – even if they didn’t live here. The beaver is a good example of this, the pelt of which was used for hats through the early 1800s. Hunted nearly to extinction, the loss of the beaver affected local ecosystems. Beavers build dams, which impound water and create environments for fish, which in turn provide food for carnivores. Take the beaver out of the picture and everything changes. In the mid-1800s, some people started recognizing that the deforestation of the country and the slaughter of wild animals would have serious economic consequences in the near future. In Europe, the rise of the Romantic Movement in literature, art, and music, spawned an appreciation for the natural world. As humans became more technologically adept at controlling their environment, nature was no longer a threat to survival. Henry David Thoreau, American writer and naturalist, stated, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.” Thoreau’s account of living simply and harmoniously with nature, Walden, published in 1854, became highly influential, as were his other writings on conservation. As the railroad pushed west, artists recorded the beauty they found in the mountains and plains. The popularization of photography brought images back East. However, the more access to wild places, the more access to animals. Buffalo, hunted yet also sacred to Native Americans, were shot for sport from moving trains. Ladies hats were elaborately trimmed with feathers. Partially in response to this destructive fashion, the Audubon society was founded, named after John James Audubon, an American artist born in Haiti in 1785 and famous for his detailed drawings and paintings of birds. Interestingly enough, hunters were among the first influential conservationists. President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid outdoorsman, established the Federal Wildlife Refuges. The Teddy Bear toy is named for Roosevelt, who saved an orphaned bear cub during a hunting expedition. Other famous naturalists and preservationists include Joy Adamson who wrote Born Free about Elsa the lioness, rescued as a cub, then trained and reintroduced to the wild. Dian Fossey studied the still-endangered gorillas of Rwanda and was the subject of the film Gorillas in the Mist. Dr. Jane Goodall began observing chimpanzees in Tanzania, where she saw 5

them use tools (previously considered an exclusively human trait), and exhibit emotions like joy and sorrow – and also attack each other violently. Humans are far from unique in many aspects. Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, published in the early 60s, about the effects of pesticides on bird populations. Silent Spring probably had more influence on environmental thinking in the late 20th century than any other single work. As the world grows smaller, we’ve begun to understand that what we do in one country affects what happens in another. Nature doesn’t recognize political boundaries and animals migrate, breeding in one country and maturing in another. As the world becomes more industrialized, pollution and deforestation threaten or destroy habitats, which is a bigger problem in some cases than unregulated hunting. Wildlife has often been assigned a value in relation to humans. Animals are valuable because they are pretty or their skins and flesh are good for clothing and food. They have recreational value (zoos) and scientific value for the data they can provide about the life process. Their disappearance can alert us to problems in the environment, as did canaries once carried underground by miners. If dangerous gases were building up, the bird would be affected before the humans, giving the miners time to get out. At this time, there’s no way to leave planet earth if it’s too dangerous to live here. But some people feel that it’s arrogant of humans to see animals only in relation to themselves. They believe other species have as much right to exist as people, and that furthermore people have no right to adversely impact the environment for all, from the largest elephant to the smallest Snail Darter, one of many small, endangered creatures. International cooperation began after the United Nations was established in 1945, bringing together representatives of many countries with common goals for the preservation of all living creatures. Hopefully, as cooperation continues to cross borders, the world picture for animals will improve.

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WHERE YOU WILL FIND WORK BEING A NATURALIST OR CONSERVATIONIST CAN TAKE YOU AS FAR AS THE OPPOSITE

side of the globe or as close as the nearest nature preserve. You might work in a mosquito-infested forest in Guam or you might sit in an office in an urban location. Many naturalists and conservationists teach in colleges and universities. Others teach in the environment they know best and can explain to others. One thing is for certain – if you’re going to be working with animals in their habitat, you are going to be working outside at some point in your career. Naturalists frequently staff wildlife areas, especially during the spring and summer when school kids and ecology-minded tourists have time to visit. The refuge might be an island with no water or electricity. That means the staff members are living in primitive conditions without many conveniences, as if they were camping for the season. Lodging could be in a tent or barracks-style in a cabin with electricity. Whether you’re working in America or Belize, chances are you’ll be near people who live their entire lives in the rural or natural area you are just visiting. Some of them might not be too glad to see you if they poach or hunt off-season. This is not something to be taken lightly. Poachers in Africa killed Joy and George Adamson. Dian Fossey died under mysterious circumstances in Rwanda. Sometimes violence erupts between ecology activists and landowners in Central and South America. On the other hand, local people have had the chance to observe the animals you’re studying and can provide invaluable information based on years of living in the same spot and watching the changes in animal populations. As with any kind of scientific work, there comes a time to go back to the lab or to get back in front of a computer and start putting your findings into a format that everyone can use. This might mean making a spreadsheet with a computer program, sending files and texts via e-mail, or extrapolating from data already gathered by someone else and then adding your own. As a professional, you might give talks to schools or civic groups that invite you to speak about your specialty, hopefully bringing along some kind of visual aid in the form of animals or photos and slides for presentations. You might go to meetings to convince government officials that an area is worth preserving. Not only will you need to sway thinking using hard evidence, but you’ll need to be comfortable speaking to people, either in small groups or large. 7

Professionals of every description tend to go to conferences to catch up on the latest information in their field. Conferences are held in places where there’s enough room for all meeting participants, which means some location with rooms to meet, such as a large city with hotels and restaurants, or a park with conference facilities. You will most likely do some traveling, although this depends a lot on your particular area of expertise. If you’re working in Central America, you might come back to the States periodically to work on the results of your studies. Many nonprofit organizations have their offices in Washington, DC, so travel to the capital will happen sooner or later. If you are in charge of planning a major project, you’ll be making site-visits to other offices or to a field project office. Air conditioned office or mosquito-thick marshland, home or abroad, your day-to-day circumstances will likely depend on how much funding a particular project receives, critical for any naturalist or conservation endeavor.

YOUR WORK DUTIES THE MOST BASIC UNIT OF ALL NATURAL SCIENCES IS THE LIVING ORGANISM. IN

wildlife conservation and ecology, the subject is the interaction of that particular unit, the living organism, within its particular environment (swamp, desert, ocean, etc). Data is collected on the organism, which means that someone, somehow, has to be there, catching and banding birds, counting fish, or searching the rainforest canopy for signs of an elusive primate. Naturalists in the field are expected to have a thorough knowledge of animals’ habits and needs, to know the best way to capture them for measuring, weighing, and tagging without causing harm. They need to know the favorite habitats and where to find them. They need to understand behavior and variations in behavior when the unexpected occurs. They perform the work of observing, recording, and sometimes verifying information in the field. The information gleaned from surveys is one of the basic building blocks. Field surveys are the place where scientists find out if an animal is endangered, if it’s making a comeback, or if things are getting worse. This is the sort of information that needs to be compiled over the course of years in some cases, and the information must be compiled accurately.

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All good science requires direct observation without preconception. That means when scientists observe animals, they rely on their training and knowledge to record what is there without making assumptions. Analysis of the findings comes later, and still is not based on opinions, but rather on data and tested theories. Think of the Scientific Method and its step-by-step procedure to arrive at (or discard) a theory and you’ll have one of the basic tools ready at hand. Some of the other tools used in the field will include radios and computers. Animals are often electronically tracked throughout their lifetimes. Such tracking can inform scientists about important information like migration patterns and interaction (if any) between herds or other groups of the same species. The radio telemetry used is an example of a Global Positioning System (GPS); sort of like the system cars have so you can find out where you are if you’re lost. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the term used to describe all of the computer software and hardware required to map areas. Interest in wildlife is what draws people to this profession but if you think you’re going to be able to spend your whole career outside working only with animals, it’s not that simple. This is not a job for someone who thinks they want to avoid people. Meeting and dealing with the public is a big part of the work of conservationists and wildlife workers. This is because one of the most important things you are doing, day after day, is educating people about the life of the world they live in, a life that they may not have realized runs parallel to their own. After all, if you can’t see it, sometimes it seems like it doesn’t exist. While most people have awareness that the environment is important, they don’t know the details. Professionals can provide them with that information. One of the important changes in wildlife conservation is the incorporation of local people as members of the team. Rather than removing humans from an area, the inhabitants help to patrol boundaries and keep out poachers. This also allows indigenous people to preserve their way of hunting or fishing and see for themselves the beneficial results of managing resources. Naturalists also spend lots of time communicating with various organizations, such as federal and state offices, for a variety of reasons. Frequently, coordination is necessary to secure or approve permits, depending on whether you work for the private sector that needs the permit for work or for a government agency that does the granting. Cooperative agreements for land use and management need to be drawn

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up, and grant proposals written to secure funding for on-going or future projects. Even though you may not intend primarily to teach, teaching in one form or another will be a major part of your daily routine. Many people volunteer to work at nature centers or to help in some way with trail rehabilitation in wilderness areas or to help with wounded animals. These volunteers must be trained by professionals in order to increase their effectiveness, and it’s up to you to make sure they know what to do. You might speak to school groups, so you need to be prepared to answer questions. Leading interpretive nature walks is another way you might interact with the public. As you can see from these examples, there is the potential for dealing with a great variety of people of all ages and all kinds. As you move up the ladder, you may find yourself supervising other employees. It’s important to be able to communicate ideas effectively, both orally and in writing, to those working with you. Good communication ensures good and effective work. Chances are that you’ll be doing a lot of writing. When you are observing in the field, you’ll need to write up your notes. As a member of the scientific community, even the smallest particle of information adds to the greater body of knowledge. It’s important that you be understood, or there is little point in what you are doing. Your writing might be simply putting your field notes in some kind of readable format, or you might be writing a report that will help your particular project get funding from a government agency or from a corporation interested in conservation. Your colleagues might read your report. Chances are also good that this will be scientific or technical writing rather than creative or narrative, so that means you need a firm grasp of the terminology and the ability to express yourself clearly. You might also edit the work of others, either as a favor or professionally. You’ll need to be helpful in pointing out mistakes or problems in clarity. You might write for the popular press, which really, when you think about it, is part of the teaching function. What you write will inform non-specialists of current information. You will also design systems and plans for wildlife protection and recovering. Remember, animals live in an ecosystem, a term that refers to all life, plants and animals, which have overlapping and intersecting lives. While it’s good to ban hunting an endangered species, it’s not enough if

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there isn’t any place for them to live. The same is true if their primary food source is no longer available. Planning also involves identifying potential problem areas to study and treat before they become problem areas. A nature preserve or refuge is a good example of land set aside to encourage animal populations to remain stable or to provide a place for recovery. Often refuges are set up in one place to offset construction or some kind of industrial development in another. Animal dissection is often part of the work, as tests run on the tissues can provide invaluable knowledge. It could be that a massive die-off of a particular species is due to a specific pollutant, which is information that would be discovered in the lab. Animal droppings require examination. An analysis of owl pellets, for example, can be conducted to find out what owls are eating. If the owl pellets aren’t showing as many mouse bones as they have in the past, it can be postulated from this information that there has been a decline in the mouse population, the main source of food for the owl. If the owls don’t have enough to eat, there will be fewer owls. Fewer owls might mean an increase in the mouse population the next year, which will be a cause for an increase in the owl population the year after that. Rather like the miner’s canary, the change in an animal population serves as a bellwether, or an indicator of the future. Scientists are concerned over the worldwide drop in the population of such common amphibians as frogs and toads. What changes have taken place that caused the drop? Perhaps the disappearance of the frogs is the warning of problems to come. Nothing stays the same in science for long. Old theories are discarded in favor of new ones as data is collected. New information comes in constantly and it’s important to stay current. Scientists must stay educated by whatever means are best. Sometimes that means going back to school even after you have your graduate degree. It also means reading in areas that might seem to be outside your field.

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NATURALISTS TELL ABOUT THEIR WORK I’m in Charge of the Raptor Rehabilitation Center “Lots of people don’t

understand what the word ‘raptor’ means, and they’ll ask me if we work on old houses. They think I’ve said ‘rafter!’ I have my master’s degree in Wildlife Biology, and I got into the rehabilitation aspect of working with wild birds when I was employed by the Department of Natural Resources here in the state and people would bring in owls or hawks that had been injured. They didn’t really know what to do with them, and we didn’t know what to do with them either, but we just started doing the best we could. There’s a mystique about raptors; they glide and swoop. They fly, and that’s something we can’t do on our own. They’re up there at the top of the food chain, like we are. It’s tough to monitor something so aloof, so far away. In high school you should take lots of math and science. People don’t like to hear that. They get worried and say they don’t want to take advanced science courses. So I ask them if they ever make orange juice. They say yes. I tell them that is science; they just did science when they mixed up the orange juice. When you get change back at McDonald’s for your hamburger, that’s math. Kids need to know math and science. You’ve got to know about the food animals eat and you’ve got to understand about the food chain. In 1988 there was a drought. A drought meant less food for small rodents to eat, so there weren’t as many rodents. Since there were fewer rodents, there weren’t as many eagles because there wasn’t anything for the eagles to eat. You need this basic knowledge. People are so much more environmentally aware than when I was in school. You can really tell. Kids nowadays are really concerned about the environment and they really have an interest in it. It’s a real change in attitude. Kids are growing up with an environmental attitude. Kids today know more than their parents do about this. 12

There really isn’t any preparation for ornithology in high school, but you might find a naturalist club at your school and you can join that. Most of the people who work at the raptor center are volunteers. We have two main objectives, the first being to rehabilitate and release the birds back into the wild, and the second purpose being to provide a sound environmental education. There’s one scientist who says if you don’t care about the environment, you might as well just put your head in a garbage bag and wrap it tight, because that’s all the environment you’re getting. One of the things the birds do is get people’s attention. We’ve had a bald eagle for about seven years. He’s here because someone shot off the end of his wing. He’s never going back into the wild again. The bald eagle is our national symbol, but nobody knows anything about bald eagles! No one’s done any research. Bald eagles don’t get that white head until they are six years old. Type “bald eagle” into an Internet search engine and you’ll get thousands of hits, but not one of them will tell you what they eat, when they molt, specific information about their eyesight, nothing. You can fill a whole room with information about turkeys or grouse or deer, but almost nothing about eagles. In old English, “bald” means white. A girl of about eight years old told me that, so I looked it up. She’s right. Kids teach me stuff all the time. You can’t do anything about educating the public without money. The people who contribute the most money are hunters and fishermen. If I’m doing a presentation with one of the birds and I have a jar or a can out to collect money, those folks send their kids up with cash. There just hasn’t been much research into non-game wildlife; the animals you don’t hunt. But there’s more federal money coming in. A federal bill passed recently to make sure that millions and millions of dollars will go to non-game research and programs.” 13

I’m the Director of the State Non-game Wildlife Program “I’ve got my bachelor’s

degree in Forestry, my master’s in Wildlife Management, and an additional master’s in Public Administration. I got both master’s at the same time. Some programs are like that; you can earn two degrees at once. This is not a really high-paying job, but that’s not why you do it. Most biologists begin by doing fieldwork. I did Canadian goose surveys, bird surveys, and worked at fisheries. I do a lot of planning and budgeting on a day-to-day basis. I supervise people, a lot of people. I run weekend programs at the State Parks such as field trips and workshops for people interested in wildlife. I also write brochures and put together teacher “trunks”. They’re literally trunks filled with storyboards, puppets, and visual aids, everything an elementary school teacher needs to teach a classroom about a particular animal. We have one for bats and one for tropical birds. Sometimes it seems like I never do the same job twice! I’ve narrated videos, published books, done graphic arts, put together newsletters. Creative writing is involved. We have two animals in this state that are endangered. They’re the Cheat Mountain Salamander and the Indiana Bat. We keep track of the bat population by surveying caves. Sometimes we contract out the work, meaning we hire a private firm to do the survey work, rather than have state employees do it. We gather information about plant and animal species. Sometimes, the information we have is pretty old and really needs to be updated. I also run breeding bird surveys. I set up a 25-mile long course, go out with a team, and listen. We stop walking at specific distances and just listen. I like getting out in the field to learn a little something. As you gain more experience and grow older, you’ll end up in an administration position. There’s a lot of politics to deal with. When you’re in school, you should work on your speaking skills and on your writing skills. In this profession, you’ll be writing news releases and press releases. You might be writing journal

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articles. If you attend professional conferences, it’s looked on favorably if you present a paper. You need lots of computers skills, just about everything from spreadsheets to word processing. It’s good to know GIS and GPS. I see people with diverse backgrounds coming into this field. For example, I looked at an application today for a person who has a background in philosophy as his undergraduate degree. People come to this field from all kinds of educational experiences. There’s lots of cooperation with different agencies. We’ve got our state partners in flight programs; we check squirrel boxes, bat boxes. We don’t have enough people to keep track of everything. In some of our wildlife management areas, we don’t even know what we have living there! One thing you have to remember, it’s not just animal management; it’s people management too.”

I First Decided to be a Scientist When I Was About 12 “I liked a lot of sciences, like

physics and mathematics. In biology, I liked genetics. One of my parents was a scientist, a human geneticist and medical doctor, so I was exposed to science when I was growing up. I also liked natural sciences because I really liked nature. I was born in the Amazon region in Brazil, but I lived in a large town, so to see animals I often went to my grandmother’s farm in the floodplains of the middle Amazon. I saw parrots, monkeys, aquatic birds, and I would spend time trying to discover the habitats of these animals in the wild. I also kept some in my house in town! I didn’t read many books on natural history at the time because they weren’t available to me. When I was a teenager, I read a lot about history, geography, and politics in Latin America, about people like Marx and Engles, Guevara, Castro, Bolivar and others. I had the chance to work in my father’s genetics lab, working on the determination of karotypes of wild passion fruits, plus I 15

had a black and white photo lab in my house. My first field work started when I graduated from the University of Sao Paulo and I came back to the Amazon region with the decision to study the ecology and behavior of monkeys, like Bearded Sakis, Sakis, and Uakaris – animals I’d never seen in the wild even though I was born there. The first time I saw these monkeys was at the Koln Zoo in Germany during a visit when I was an undergraduate. There wasn’t much information about these monkeys, so I decided to study them. I went to a very remote area to study the White-Nosed Saki. I had to travel five hours by mono-motor plane to get to their habitat. I knew after seeing them a few times that I already knew more than anyone else about that particular species and that it was important. It kept me studying. Today, they are considered among the most difficult to find of the Amazon primates. They live only in undisturbed areas, very far from humans. They have large home ‘ranches’ and travel a lot each day. That makes them hard to study. In college I did research on genetics for two years, then at 19 I became the director of a local zoo. After I earned my undergraduate degree, I studied Sakis for three years, and then went back for my master’s. Right after I finished my masters, I went to Cambridge University in England and did my thesis on White Uakaris. My 12-year-old son just asked me what to study to be a naturalist. I told him to prepare for the years to come he has to concentrate on three areas: He has to learn science and mathematics well. This is the basis for any profession he may choose. He needs to speak well because communications is the most important skill. He also has to read a lot, the most general literature as well as writing well. That’s important also for any profession. These are all important for any career a person wants to follow. If you fail in one, it will be a limitation. Besides science and math, I would study as widely as possible to be able to have a broad view of the world. As far as animals go, I would say that going into the field is useful, going to zoos and 16

aquariums is helpful, even having animals as pets. It helps you to understand their behavior. We use a lot of high tech equipment: Global positioning systems, computers, multimedia, data show projectors, videos, DVDs, radio telemetry by satellite and VHF, internet, camera traps, radios for communication, engines . . . electrical and mechanical knowledge helps a lot! Today I manage a lot of people and projects, perhaps over 100 people. However, for more than 15 years from my undergraduate days to the start of managing this project I lived in situations like Robinson Crusoe. This was necessary because of the type of monkeys I chose to study. It took a lot of determination to keep going. Many times I was lost in the forest, I sank at least two boats, got tropical diseases. These things are part of the risks one has to take when doing fieldwork in this region. What gives me the most satisfaction is to see that despite the problems we face each day in all fields, we are going ahead with our conservation work. And, informally, this work is spreading out throughout the Amazon, slowly and silently. It’s frustrating to see that the other side has more resources to destroy nature than we have to protect nature. But the worst of all is to see that people on our side are spending much more time and effort on procedural activities than on end results. This means a lot of meetings, consultancies, making plans and more plans and doing very little in the field. Many nonprofits can spend 90% of their budgets on marketing and their own salaries, and only 10% will go to activities that really could make a difference in conservation.”

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I Write About Wildlife, Nature and the Environment “When I was a junior in college, I

participated in a three-month study-abroad program in Australia. It was run by the School for Field Studies (www.fieldstudies.org) Rainforest Ecology program. That was absolutely incredible and life changing! I highly recommend such an experience for anyone interested even remotely in a career in wildlife biology, environmental studies, or even cellular biology – it gives people an opportunity to live and breathe science before you begin working as a scientist. After my three-month program, I loved Australia so much I stayed over an extra two months. During that time, an Australian friend I’d met invited me to come along on a week long sea turtle nesting volunteer program. How could I resist? We camped in tents, team-cooked meals, and after sunset patrolled the beaches to look for nesting sea turtles. Loggerhead and green turtles nested there, on Mon Repos beach in Queensland. I was just absolutely enthralled. I just can’t explain the intensity of seeing one of these massive creatures laboring in front of your eyes, laying her eggs, crawling across the beach. That was my first introduction to sea turtles, and I’ve been interested ever since. I have written articles on sea turtles, for Discovery Online, Animals, Rodale’s Scuba Diving, and California Wild magazines. After getting back from Australia, I changed my major from Pre-med to Wildlife Ecology to better fit my interests. I completed my BS (Bachelor of Science) and went on to get an MS (Master of Science) in Wildlife Ecology. After I completed my degree, I sort of happened into a career in environmental journalism. The Internet was just beginning to explode in popularity, and I had just given birth to my first child. I wasn’t ready to go to a full-time out of the home job. On the Internet, I saw an ad for a writer and got assigned to write an article on electric vehicles. I wrote a few more articles for this publication before realizing that I could make a living at this, writing about my specialty – wildlife, ecology, and the environment. So I bought every book I could find at the bookstore and pored over how to become a freelance writer. I focused on magazines in the nature/outdoor genre and because of

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my education and my writing skills I broke into the national magazines relatively quickly. And it has gone from there! I plan to continue writing on wildlife, nature, and the environment for national magazines. I would like to write about issues that are important for our society, and that help educate people about the natural world, leading them to appreciate and respect nature even more. I would like to visit all the continents at some point – and return to Australia. I would like to delve further into the photographic end of journalism and partner with my husband as a writer-photographer team. He is currently a chemist but would like to pursue photography as a full-time endeavor in the future.” Naturalist saving a bird which has been caught in a fishing line.

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PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS THE BEST PEOPLE FOR THIS CAREER ARE COMMITTED TO NATURE AND THE

environment and see themselves as part of the world around them. It’s good to understand that just as you can be affected by nature (floods, snowstorms, insect pests ruining the tomatoes), nature is affected by you. It has been said that if everyone in countries with little personal wealth were brought up to the very high level of consuming of Western Europe and the US, the planet would collapse from the strain on environment resources. It’s not the happiest of thoughts, but these are the kinds of issues that you will often face as you study wild animals and do the work of saving them and their habitats so they thrive into the future. The good news is that if you have some understanding of your relationship with the natural world, you are also probably the kind of person who can tell you are making a difference even on days when it doesn’t seem like you’re doing anything except spinning wheels. The appreciation of your peers might be among the greatest rewards you’ll ever receive – and then there might be times when that doesn’t happen either. You need to be the sort of person willing to give 100% all the time. That means working irregular and long hours under difficult conditions. You need to cultivate patience and persistence, as there are times when everything could seem futile. If there isn’t funding during the current season to continue your project onto the next logical phase, you’ll have to accept that you did the best you could given the tools you had to work with. You pack up your tent, put the file in a drawer or save the data to a disk, and trust that it will come in handy some day. Curiosity is another plus factor. You’ll need to keep educating yourself, either formally in your post-graduate education or informally to keep yourself current. Science isn’t static so it’s dangerous to take your knowledge for granted. If nothing else, the technological aspect of the work has increased since computers became the norm, and you have to be prepared to use the new technology. Political awareness certainly can’t hurt since politics will affect your working life anyway. Sometimes the preservation of wildlife is not high on the agenda of a local political figure or someone on a national scale and you have to be prepared to know what’s going on, even if you can’t do anything about it. It’s one of those realities that you might not have expected when you started looking at this career field.

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Even though some of your best friends will be animals, you still need to be a people person. That means you need to communicate, orally and in writing, constantly as you work in teams to accomplish a job, present the results of your findings, or make travel arrangements that involve staying for an extended period of time in another country. You’ll need to get along with people from all walks of life and all kinds of people. Part of your set of communication skills might be an understanding of Spanish if you want to work in parts of North America, and pretty much all of Central and South America, as well as the Philippines. It’s best to be tenacious in your education and in your job search. The right job probably won’t be waiting for you the day you graduate and you’ll have to do lots of exploration to get where you want to be. This means making contacts, filling in the gaps in your résumé with more experience (maybe volunteer or internships) or even more course work. Above all, the ability to care about your work will never decrease in importance. This caring will also drive your need to keep educating yourself and to be persistent when it’s time to apply for colleges, apply for scholarships and internships, and finally to apply for jobs.

ATTRACTIVE FEATURES THERE’S A SAYING: “DO WHAT YOU lOVE, AND THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW.” PEOPLE

who are concerned about the environment and want to do something meaningful with their lives can easily find a home for themselves in wildlife conservation. The work you do today will benefit people, animals, and the environment of the future. You might be effective in helping to preserve a threatened species, one that your great-great-great grandchildren will enjoy. It’s interesting to think about Native Americans’ philosophies about stewardship of the environment, concepts developed outside of the framework of a formal institution. The Iroquois Indians believed in the Seventh Generation. When they sat down to a council meeting, someone would always remind the assembly that any decision they made would have to take into account the effects on the Seventh Generation, those people who would not even be born for over 100 years. That’s a far-reaching concept, yet the wisdom of it can be easily grasped. Think of working to preserve life on the planet – it’s your legacy to the future. You’ll have the opportunity to be outside rather than spending your entire working life sitting at a desk. You’ll be moving around and getting 21

some (or maybe a lot) of physical exercise. If you love animals and nature, then there’s really no substitute for this kind of experience even on days when the weather’s unpleasant. However, some of your outdoors work might be very pleasant indeed depending on the location, which means you’ll be able to travel and maybe even live in other parts of the world. The experience of living and working overseas is invaluable. Your personal world will expand and you’ll gain an appreciation for other cultures. This is even true if you relocate to another part of the United States, where you’ll learn that not everyone lives the way you did in your hometown. You might also be able to relocate to your dream environment, like the Rocky Mountains or someplace on the coast near the ocean where you can study the unique ecology of estuaries, the place where fresh and salt water meet. You’ll meet people with the same interests as yourself and work with them on projects. In fact, that’s one of the most frequently mentioned positives in this field. Naturalists, animal scientists, and conservationists really enjoy consulting with each other and bouncing ideas back and forth for wildlife preservation. Colleagues from different countries form lasting connections and friendships to the benefit of all. The opportunity to share information will improve your own work. Some jobs in wildlife conservation have so much variety in the work, at times seeming almost as if no task is repeated from one week to the next. The constant variety will keep you from getting bored or burned out in your profession. There’ll also be many opportunities to exercise your creativity.

UNATTRACTIVE FEATURES T H E RE CAN B E AN IMMENSE AMOUNT OF FRUSTRATION IN THE FIELD OF ANIMAL

conservation and preservation. Sometimes, in spite of careful study, protective legislation, and public education, things don’t work out very well. Recently, an expert on gibbons (small primates that live in the Himalayas) talked about how the species is vanishing. In 30 years of study, he doesn’t have any good news about an increase in the total gibbon population. Things are getting desperate. All primates are directly affected by their near relatives – humans. Since the human population of the planet now exceeds six million, primates are, in some areas, in direct competition with us for land and other resources. Primates aren’t the only ones, as more and more natural 22

habitats are converted to industrial and agricultural uses. There are several multinational organizations dedicated to preserving animals in the wild, spending resources of money and time towards the effort. But sometimes it seems as if sooner or later the only animals left will be the ones safe in zoos. Even this is no guarantee of their continued survival as wild animals often do not breed in captivity, or their young fail to thrive. The work can also be dangerous, that danger coming from other humans who oppose your efforts, in addition to dangers posed by wild animals or extreme conditions. People with an interest in animals as marketable commodities (fur, exotic pets, medicinal value) or an interest in converting the wildlife habitat for economic use (farming or building construction, for example) are not always fair or scrupulous in their dealings. To further complicate matters, people who live in poverty inhabit some parts of the world with significant animal populations. If they see the opportunity for economic advancement by timbering the rain forests or by a new mining operation for ores or fossil fuels, then they are not going to be too concerned with the wildlife that suffers. It’s hard to blame hungry people for trying to survive. As you can see, it’s not a simple right-or-wrong matter. After all, in America, every available resource had to be depleted, threatened, or gone before we understood it was time to stop. Even the prairies of the west that look like untamed grasslands, are only 2% of their original state. Living conditions can be less than ideal when you’re out in the field. You and/or the people you work with will need to be trained in first aid in case of accidents, accidents that could range from a twisted ankle to a broken limb to more serious conditions. If you are working in an inhospitable climate, you’ll need to have a battery of vaccinations to keep from catching illnesses such as malaria. Even so, there’s no guarantee against ill health of some kind, possibly in the form of parasites. You’ll be responsible for equipment in the field, for staying organized and staying on time and on budget. Some organization or individual has to pay for science and you will have to work very hard at recording and sampling to meet your requirements. Another frustration can be dealing with people who do not share your concerns, all the way from members of the public to various government officials, either our own government or the one in the country where you are working. Even people who are interested in wildlife and want to know more can be unhelpful due to ignorance. Your patience and your teaching ability will be tried over and over. 23

Finally, there’s more paperwork all the time. Professionals who want to work with animals spend a lot of their time filling out forms and documenting everything. It’s for the greater good of accountability, but it’s still a burden many wish they could do without.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING AT ONE TIME, PEOPLE MAJORED IN ZOOLOGY OR BIOLOGY IN PREPARATION FOR A

career in wildlife ecology; this has changed. You can’t understand animals without understanding their environment and their place in the food chain. The flora, the air, and the nutrients in the soil, in the water – nothing can be considered in isolation. An understanding of physics is necessary, as is understanding the way energy works. Just as important is understanding the growth of the human population. Since humans are such large consumers of natural resources and our impact on the environment is so dramatic, we must be studied from our social arrangements down to our DNA. In fact, specializing early in your education is probably a bad idea. People come to this field from all disciplines. Some professionals who work with sea mammals even advise taking child psychology courses as an aid to understanding animal behavior. In response to this understanding, colleges and universities now offer majors in Environmental Sciences, which are broad-based curriculums. These programs are heavily science oriented. Courses in chemistry and mathematics dominate. There is also heavy emphasis on analytical methods of collecting and interpreting data, use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). GIS and GPS are mapping systems that are more than one particular software package. These terms express the totality of computer hardware and software utilized by professionals. The data that go into computer systems must be collected accurately. There are methods and protocols to follow. Your education will train you in the correct way to obtain data, on land or on sea. With the arrival of computers, data can now be utilized more quickly and flexibly than ever before. What once took weeks to transmit and analyze can now be instantly downloaded, placed in a spread-sheet program, and manipulated in any desired fashion to look at a variety of trends and possible outcomes. Along with the hard science and the technology will come courses in communications. Not only will you be required to write and express ideas 24

in your coursework, but also you will need to do so in your chosen career. Communication is not something you can leave up to someone else.

Internships Are Important Perhaps the most important part of your education will be your internship. Internship programs vary from school to school. Some require a semester of work with a community group also interested in the ecology and the environment. Other programs will give you the opportunity to work in another part of the world, usually by means of a cooperative agreement with a foreign university or an international organization. This is not a paying position, but rather one where you will earn college credit. Other programs are quite innovative, giving you the opportunity to live and work in unique environments, such as Biosphere 2 in Arizona, an enclosed place in the desert designed to study a specific ecosystem up close. Graduate Education

As with any professional career, post-graduate education is a must if you wish to advance in your field. This means at least a master’s degree, which requires from two to three years to complete. An MA program might require a thesis, which is a lengthy paper in your area of expertise written with the guidance of a committee. Some degree programs don’t require a thesis, but you’ll need to take extra classes to make up the difference. When you start course work for your master’s degree, talk to your advisor and to the head of the department to decide which option is the best for you. If you wish to teach or become the head of an organization, you’ll more than likely need your doctorate. There’s plenty of competition in the job market so you need to stay in the running by earning advanced degrees. Doctoral work also requires a project of some scope, like your master’s thesis except much larger. To earn your PhD, you will write a dissertation based on original research. Not only does the dissertation teach you to perform accurate research and give you the qualifications for an advanced degree, but also it will add to the general body of knowledge in your subject field. If you want to work in Central or South America, you will need to understand as much Spanish as possible. The better you can communicate with the people around you, the better off you and your project will be. Some jobs require fluency in another language before they will consider you as a job candidate. You will need to take this into consideration when planning your college career.

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Education for Wildlife Technicians There are some programs

from which you can graduate in two years with an associate degree as a Wildlife Technician. You’ll be qualified to do field work, but your chances of advancing without additional education are slim. Look at the information on requirements and opportunities with a two-year degree, and then find out if four-year degree programs will let you transfer your credits. It’s also possible that working strictly as a wildlife technician will be exactly what you want, at least for a while before your focus and interests gel.

EARNINGS THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU CAN MAKE IN THIS FIELD VARIES WIDELY. BEGINNING

field technicians make somewhere around $7 an hour, while the head of an organization might make well over $100,000 a year. If you work for the summer at a specific location, you might get about $400 a month plus room and board. A reasonable estimate will depend on the organization you work for. The director of a program at the state level might make about $35,000 a year – after earning a bachelor’s degree and at least one master’s, while another program might only be funded for part time. Take a look at some of the career organizations included in the Web in this field. The more versatile you are, the more likely your chances for earning a higher salary. It seems to be true, however, that the higher up you go, the farther removed you are from fieldwork and hands-on work. However, advanced degrees and experience will also give you opportunities to receive grants (money donated by governments or private industry) for study, teaching, and research in the field you love.

OPPORTUNITIES CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN THE MULTIPLE FIELDS AND DISCIPLINES OF WILDLIFE

conservation are not slowing down. As more people realize the dangers posed to the environment, more programs are put in place to deal with or minimize the damage, if at all possible. Even if you love animals but don’t consider yourself to be a scientist, there’s a place for you. A recent survey of nonprofit organizations indicates a need for employees adept at communication – people able to speak, organize presentations, and write and develop grant proposals. 26

Grants of money are very important for not-for-profit groups like the Isaac Walton League or the World Wildlife Federation. For-profit organizations, such as companies involved in environmental litigation or who contract their services to government agencies, also need people with a wide-ranging background. Don’t forget that you still need to study environmental sciences and mathematics, to have the knowledge to work in the environment. Some job titles of employment opportunities in wildlife work include: Aquatic Ecologist/Limnologist Biologist – Conservation Programs Caribbean Ecosystem Manager Conservation and Science Program Assistant Conservation Specialist Ecosystem/Water Quality Scientist Endangered Species Coordinator Field Biologist Field Crew Technician Field Research Assistant Interpretive Naturalist Island Manager Marine protected Area GIS/Remote Sensing Preserves Manager Research Assistant Research Ecologist Wildlife Biologist Wolf Program Coordinator As funding rises and falls, the employment picture will change. Study projects are often temporary, lasting only for a short term and only funded as such. Some poorly funded positions in areas without financial resources are only paid a part-time salary even though the work is multifaceted, full time, and demanding.

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GETTING STARTED START BY VOLUNTEERING. EVEN IF THERE ISN’T A WILDLIFE CENTER NEAR YOU,

volunteer at your local animal shelter. See if you can work for the summer at a vet’s office or maybe get a job at a stable. After all, domestic animals had wild ancestors. What you learn from watching a cat can apply to a tiger – true, on a much smaller scale, but there are similarities from cat to cat. Many community organizations, like museums and the YMCA, hold science-and-nature day camps or classes designed for elementary school-aged children. Consider volunteering for work at one of these. You’ll have to teach yourself to stay ahead of the kids in your classes, for one thing, and it will give you much-needed experience in working with people. Volunteering just about always leads to further opportunities. You’ll gain experience and the person directing or supervising you will be happy to be a reference if they liked your work. Volunteering looks great on a résumé or college application. Pay attention to what interests you most. Do you want to work with primates? Birds? Is there an area of the country that fascinates you? Maybe you want to go to Central or South America because you’re concerned about the rain forests and the threat to biodiversity. Maybe you’re concerned about biodiversity in your own back yard. Suggest visits to nature preserves or wild places on family vacations or on field trips at your school or other organizations you might belong to (Scouts, church/temple group, for example). Fortunately, you don’t have to specialize right away. While today you might be sure you want to study bats, your education and experience will shape your interests in ways that you can’t anticipate right now. Some jobs as field technicians require only a high school education. These are not high paying positions. Work takes place outside in all weather, long hours, and requires attention to detail. These are all good opportunities for you to not only gain experience, but to help you decide if this is a career path you might want to follow. Future employers and college admissions officers will look favorably on this experience as it proves your abilities. You’ll also be able to ask the people where you work for references for future employment and academic referrals. Personal assessments are often key in getting into academic programs.

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This naturalist is studying a Sea Anemone

Begin planning your college career with your school guidance counselor. They can look at the classes you’ve taken so far and at the classes you will need to get accepted to a college. Begin applying for colleges in your junior year; but as long as you’re in high school, there’s still time to find a college. However, you might not be able to get your first choice. Researching schools is a good idea so you can come up with alternative choices. If you aren’t planning on getting a four-year degree, look at the technical schools that offer programs in your area of interest. In-state tuition will be cheaper than out-of-state, and scholarships are always good. Look at some of the organizational web sites in this report and find out about internships that will pay tuition and scholarship programs. Another good site is the Student Conservation Association www.sca-inc.org. You can get information on applying for internships, which, while they aren’t paying jobs, will get you valuable experience. There will be requirements when you apply, like letters of reference. You can see how your volunteer experience will prove that you’re dependable and interested. 29

ASSOCIATIONS n

American Society of Naturalists www.amnat.org

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Greenpeace www.greenpeace.org/

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Ecological society of America http://esa.sdsc.edu/

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Friends of the Earth http://www.foei.org/

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International Wildlife Rehabilitation Counsel http://www.iwrc-online.org/

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International Wildlife Education and Conservation http://www.iwec.org/

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National Audubon Society www.audubon.org

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National Wildlife Federation www.nwf.org

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The Nature Conservancy www.tnc.org

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North American Nature Photography Association www.nanpa.org

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The Sierra Club www.sierraclub.com

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The Smithsonian Institution www.si.edu

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Wildlife Conservation Society www.wcs.org

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Wildlife Preservation Trust International http://www.wpti.org/

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World Wildlife Federation www.wwf.org 30

WEB SITES n

The Discovery Channel http://animal.discovery.com

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E Jobs www.ejobs.org

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Environmental Career Center http://environmentalcareer.com

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The Environmental Careers Organization www.eco.org

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Environmental Education Resources on the Internet http://eelink.net

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Environmental News Network www.enn.com

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The Job Seeker www.tomah.com/jobseeker/

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Marine Science Careers www.marinecareers.net

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Student Conservation Association www.sca-inc.org

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Environmental Jobs and Careers www.ejobs.org

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Jobs in Environmental Career Opportunities http://ecojobs.com

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SciSeek – Online Science and Nature Resource www.sciseek.com

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Wildlife Tracker: Animal and Environmental Search Engine http://www.wildlifetracker.com/

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Wildlife Web http://www.selu.com/bio/wildlife/

COPYRIGHT 2005 INSTITUTE FOR CAREER RESEARCH CHICAGO 31