How to Become a Wildlife Conservationist: An Animal Volunteer Resume Building Guide

How to Become a Wildlife Conservationist

An Animal Volunteer Resume Building Guide to Volunteering Abroad … and in Mostly any City with a University

This page is for those curious and looking to get out and volunteer on wildlife / conservation research projects, with little to no experience, confused about an entry point. Perhaps to build a resume or to find out what it is like, get your feet wet, without the commitment of a further degree / career. Maybe you are interested in the field but have no idea what your interested and want to sample it, or not sure you are cut out to be a wildlife biologist, or just want to go on a unique, good-for-the-world kind of travel adventure!

I’ve put together this list from years building up such experiences. Projects I’ve done include: chasing Kangaroos for behavior study in Australia, dissecting out plastic in seabirds, catching bats to study their immune systems in CA’s agricultural Central Valley, following Monkey butts to study social structure in Germany, and Macaw life-cycles in Peruvian Amazon.

For my specific list for Los Angeles, see article here: https://www.julialesel.com/blog/ways-to-get-involved-in-nature-conservation-specific-resources-in-los-angeles

General Ways to get involved in nature conservation, international/abroad:

• Main great way: Contact universities in your city, through biology/ecology department, look up labs and professors. Send them an email saying you are interested in assisting and learning about the field, and what projects are going on / if they have any openings for a research assistant (in emails to grad students) or grad students (in emails to professors). 

• www.Conbio.org : A great website with nature jobs at different levels, all over the world- some pay a stipend, others are volunteer (can sometimes grow into more). While there are paid full-time jobs, it’s also great for someone some/no experience looking to volunteer on real research projects, not just “voluntourism”:

  • Please note: always read fine print and learn as much as you can about particular projects before committing to anything.