u/Splattered_Ink18

Hello all

I'm trying to figure out the path I want to be on, and wildlife biologist has always been in the back of my mind. When I look online for things like job availability, what the work is like, etc, I find that there is a massive amount of negativity regarding wildlife biology / similar career paths especially on reddit. Lots of stuff about there being no jobs, terrible pay, etc.

The deeper I research the more I feel like I don't understand this field or what it actually involves, and that makes me very hesitant to pursue this path.

I have always adored the natural world and just want to help and make a difference. Studying, learning, observing wildlife, I want to do it all. Part of my struggle is that I am interested in conservation as a whole, and not any specific part of it (ex. forestry, marine). I would love to travel beyond my country and get involved in other places with conservation as well, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

I just want some honest answers from people who work in environmental / conservation careers- anything would be massively helpful.

What do you love about your work? What do you hate? What are some aspects of the work that you didn't expect?

And if you want to share any incredible (or terrible) experiences, I'd love to hearing the whole spectrum of experiences.

Hey guys, I live in Alberta Canada.

I struggled through uni right out of highschool, dragged myself through 3 years of a conservation degree and hated it at the time so I dropped out before I finished, and it's just so ridiculously expensive to go to uni.

Now I'm stuck at a dog daycare job I've been working for 3 years now- while I enjoy the flexibility of the job i don't enjoy the job itself anymore, and it's a dead end job.

I also have a diploma for 2d animation & illustration.

I've gone back and forth a lot over the years between my love for the natural world and my love for art. These days jobs seem to be hard to come by regardless of field, but I've come to realize I probably need to go back to school for *something* so I'm not trapped in this stupid job anymore.

I dream of being able to make a real difference in the world when it comes to wildlife / conservation. I'd love to be lucky enough to find a career path with a blend of field work, research, and travelling to cool places or participating in more complex international conservation work.

if anyone has any recommendations for job prospects, university/college degrees to get me there, etc, I would greatly appreciate any and all advice.

We’re on the last day of our trip and I just found out now that it’s illegal to take coral / conch shells out of the country.

We’re planning to return the dead coral pieces we found to a beach nearby tomorrow morning, but I also have a few broken small pieces of shells (no conch shells)- does anyone know if those will be confiscated / cause problems in an airport? We’re returning to Canada tomorrow evening.

If they cause problems / if it’s unethical we’ll return everything to the beach, just thought I’d ask because we want to come back here in the future and not cause problems :)

Everyone recommends that "roomies" site but I find that it's almost entirely useless, idk if it's the house I'm advertising but I've never had any luck with that site.

Facebook seems extremely unhelpful too with a bunch of randos or sketchy people, seriously why is it so hard to find a roommate??? If anyone has any recs I would seriously appreciate it, none of my friends know anybody who need a place and my reaching out to strangers seems to be useless too on these websites.

I've been looking for months and no luck :(