Preferred qualifications:

Bachelor’s Degree in Biology, Wildlife or Fisheries Management, Zoology, Environmental Sciences or other closely related curriculum and three years of professional experience in a natural resource program.  Degrees in Wildlife Management / Ecology or other natural resource fields are preferred.

Description of position:

The Office of Conservation Planning Services (OCPS) is seeking an energetic and motivated candidate to work within a team of wildlife biologists providing assistance to private and public landowners.  This position offers the opportunity to influence management decisions on a landscape level by developing and fostering long-term partnerships with private landowners who own and manage over half of Florida’s natural resources.  

OCPS provides scientific support and technical assistance to a wide array of private and public sector landowners and local, state, and federal governmental entities on habitat-related issues. OCPS develops comprehensive habitat-based management plans, develops and implements incentive programs for private landowners such as payment for ecological services, provides recommendations for implementation of habitat management programs on private and publicly-owned land, and conducts habitat assessments on conservation easements such as gopher tortoise recipient sites.  This position will directly influence the management of both game and non-game species such as white-tailed deer, quail, turkey, waterfowl, Florida panther, gopher tortoise, black bear, indigo snake, scrub jay, wading birds, and others.

The OCPS Southwest Region Team’s primary function is development, administration and delivery of voluntary, incentive-based habitat improvement programs including, but not limited to, FARM Bill Conservation Programs, Forest Stewardship Program, Landowner Incentive Program, Panther Payment for Ecosystem Services Program, Gopher Tortoise Recipient Site Program, and Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program.  This position will have the opportunity to closely coordinate and act as a liaison to implement FARM Bill programs including but not limited to CTA, ACEP, EQIP, and CSP.  

Duties and responsibilities:

Includes but are not limited to building and fostering long-term partnerships with landowners, biological data collection and analysis; developing maps using ArcGIS Pro & ArcGIS Online; writing Conservation Stewardship Plans, reports and land management prescriptions; monitoring and evaluating program-funded fish and wildlife habitat enhancement activities, collecting wildlife observations in the field, and planning and conducting educational workshops and field days. 

Desired qualifications include:

The ability to positively communicate with a wide variety of landowners who have different land-uses and objectives for their property, passion for motivating landowners to actively manage their habitats in ways that benefit wildlife, the ability and desire to be open-minded while working within a team of biologists to develop long-term partnerships with private landowners, the ability to multi-task as well as work alone when needed, Geographical Information System experience, excellent communicative skills both verbal and written, knowledge of Florida plant/animal communities, the ability to trailer and operate off-road vehicles such as UTVs, knowledge of habitat management techniques, the ability to travel overnight less than 25%, work alone in the field 50% of the time, and public speaking ability.