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scardogcometh5 karma

I personally view pay to play field work as becoming a large problem for maintaining a diverse researcher pool in wildlife conservation.

Did you guys catch this article? If so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

https://news.mongabay.com/2017/08/a-rich-persons-profession-young-conservationists-struggle-to-make-it/

Edit:

I also wanted to add that to anyone potentially considering a career in wildlife or forestry that you should never feel like you have to pay someone to do field work. Start your search at USAJOBS or the Texas A&M wildlife jobs board where you can find all sorts of job postings with varying level of back ground requirements.

scardogcometh1 karma

Thank you for replying at length and with great honesty. I hope my comment didn't come across as accusatory. From looking at your organization's publication record you all look like you are doing a great job. I just think that it's a conversation that needs to be had when an organization runs off of pay-to-volunteer (PTV) workers.

Some organizations do a good job of compensating students/volunteers with a combination of university credit, connections, and in some cases publication credit. However, there are also some that are little more than for-profit ecotourism companies that are borderline predatory.

Like you said, in conservation there are extremely limited resources available. One of the most valuable resources being the upcoming generation of biologists and wildlife managers. As such, it is important that this resource be managed in a sustainable way instead of disposable labor.

The PTV model of funding is largely new to conservation and I hope as your organizations grows, you continue to have these kinds of conversations.