Careers in Wildlife Conservation
A career in wildlife conservation is rewarding and challenging. Conservation professionals dedicate their careers to managing and protecting wildlife for current and future generations and ensuring meaningful opportunities for outdoor recreation and the opportunity to connect to nature.
At a state wildlife agency like the Pennsylvania Game Commission, a career can take you down many exciting paths. Agency professionals are scientists, law enforcement officers, habitat managers, communicators, educators and more, and united by a common conservation mission. Find out more about each career path below!
Wildlife Management
Want to apply scientific principles to the hands-on study of wildlife? These are the careers for you! Wildlife biologists study ecology, behaviors, habitats, and health of wildlife. Game Commission biologists often have different focus areas. They may be experts on a specific species, like our ornithologist (bird biologist), or work on game or non-game species including threatened and endangered. Wildlife technicians and disease specialists conduct field research to understand the health of state wildlife populations. On any given day, you may band a migrating duck, take disease samples from a white-tailed deer, install a barn owl nest box, or crawl into a black bear's den!
Wildlife Habitat Management
Wildlife needs food, water, shelter, and space to thrive. Human development like agriculture, residential and commercial properties can limit what habitat is available for wildlife. That's why the Game Commission owns and manages more than 1.5 million acres in Pennsylvania for wildlife. Habitat managers and foresters take an ecosystem view of these lands, ensuring vital habitat for wildlife is always available and well maintained. Foresters conduct timber stand improvements and use prescribed fire to manage forest and grassland areas. Habitat crews, which includes game lands maintenance workers, put into action the habitat and ecosystem restoration plans created by managers and other experts. If you like being outside and working hard for wildlife, these are potential career paths for you!
Wildlife Protection
Poaching, illegally selling species across state lines, and hunting without a license are just a few of the wildlife crimes state game wardens are responsible for monitoring. They enforce wildlife law and regulations, respond to nuisance wildlife calls, educate the public about wildlife issues, and may even go undercover to penetrate illegal wildlife smuggling rings. Game wardens protect and speak for wildlife because wildlife cannot speak for themselves. They are state law enforcement officers that have enforcement authority throughout the Commonwealth.
Marketing & Strategic Communcations
A primary funding source for wildlife conservation is the sale of hunting licenses. Without a robust, engaged hunting population, funding for habitat management, ecosystem restoration, and endangered species protection would be limited. Marketing professionals inform the public about hunting and trapping opportunities while communication professionals like videographers and social media managers ensure clear communication to the public, celebrating the hard work Game Commission employees do for wildlife and their habitats every day.
Information & Education
Future generations cannot carry on the tradition of conserving wildlife without education. That is why every employee at the Game Commission is an educator, working to share the work and principles that underpin our state's shared conservation heritage. Dedicated education and outreach professionals guide school groups and the public through wildlife lessons and activities, table at events, and share the stories of conservationtion through programming. Education and outreach team members also offer specific programs related to the recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) of hunters, and hunter trapper education.