What It Really Takes to Work in Conservation (And Why These Layoffs Hurt So Much)
- nicoledefelice88
- Feb 19
- 6 min read
With the wave of layoffs under the Trump Administration, I can’t help but feel personally connected to the frustration and devastation of those affected. Federal employees from agencies like the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management—people who have dedicated their careers to protecting our natural resources—have lost their jobs.
Before I started my current position, I was applying for permanent roles with these very agencies. It was, and still is, a dream of mine to work for one of them. Seeing these cuts firsthand is heartbreaking, knowing the immense dedication, passion, and sacrifice it takes to build a career in conservation.
The people who dedicate their lives to stewarding the environment—whether through trail work, protecting endangered species, fighting wildfires, maintaining campgrounds, ensuring visitor safety in the backcountry, or educating the public—almost all started with a childhood dream. Many kids imagine themselves as marine biologists, veterinarians, or zookeepers at some point. We are the few who never let go of that dream, chasing it all the way to fruition.
But there’s a reason so many fall away from these paths. These jobs are notoriously underpaid, often requiring years of unpaid or low-wage seasonal work. They can involve cleaning animal enclosures, scrubbing public toilets, or doing grueling physical labor in harsh conditions. And on top of that, competition is fierce—making it one of the hardest fields to break into, no matter how passionate you are.
What people are not seeing are the years of physically tough field work, hours spent in a lab or on a computer running massive amounts of data through coding, money spent on not only a four-year degree, but a graduate degree. The years of sacrifice of having to move to another state for a seasonal job, working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day on your feet. Not being able to own a pet or maintain a serious relationship because you know you will have to move somewhere else in the next six months. Oh, and I forgot to mention, we are usually living in shared housing (sharing a room sometimes), with no health insurance.
I want to show you the timeline of my wildlife career, and how long it took me to get a permanent job with benefits where I felt financially secure. I wanted to highlight the hardships of these jobs since they aren’t always mentioned in social media posts where we only focus on the positive.
2012-2016
Received a Bachelor's of Science degree in Natural Resources and the Environment with a concentration in Wildlife Conservation from UConn.
Jan 2017 - Oct 2017
Environmental Steward for SCA New Hampshire Americorps. This was by far one of the most impactful and influential positions I ever held. I learned so many things about myself living in a community of 27 people.
- $90/week
- Shared a cabin with no bathroom or electric with 7 other people and many, many mice.
- Food was provided, but only vegetarian. We had to buy our own meat if we wanted it
- Worked 11 days straight at a time, sometimes no shower, being eaten alive by bugs, and camping
- 6 months of camping and doing trail work. Sleeping on the hard ground every night was not very satisfying.
Nov 2017 – March 2018
Technician tracking movements of deer in Big Cypress NWR, FL
- $150/week
- Everyday I would tread through thigh-deep swamp water, hoping I wouldn’t stir up a gator
- My badass, fellow technician friend (shoutout Katie!!) was actually bit by a gator while checking cameras in the field by herself (she is totally fine, and so is the gator)
- Lost and by myself, tangled in smilax, a very thorny vine, and crying because I’m frustrated and scared that I thought I heard a panther or bear nearby
April 2018 – September 2018
Piping Plover Technician in the Outer Banks, NC
- Worked 6 days a week, 12-hour days
- $12/hour
- In a 6th month period only had 3 consecutive days off once
- Walked ~ 8-10 miles a day in the sand under the hot sun
- Awful blisters all over my feet the entire season from walking so much
Feb 2019 – May 2019
Avian Technician in very rural Elkhart, Kansas
-$13/hour
- Lived in the middle of nowhere… *cue tumbleweed flying through (not joking)
- Stared at squares of grass and had to identify all the plant types in the square for 8 hours
May 2019- Oct 2019
Avian Technician in Oregon
- $15/hour
- I worked multiple short gigs in this time frame, some on the coast, some in southern Oregon
- Hiked in dense, uneven terrain that was often wet, muddy, and had tons of thorny vines. We didn't walk nice, maintained trails, we were bushwhacking.
- Crazy work schedule. We would have to take up at 2 am to do dawn watches and be done by 10am, and then work a normal 8-4 workday the next day. Very dysregulating
March 2020 – August 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Piping Plover Technician in RI
- $20/hour
- In all of these piping plover jobs, I would walk 7-10 miles a day in sand carrying equipment
- Would regularly have contentious interactions with the public because they didn’t like that we were designating a small area of the beach for nesting birds, or that we kindly asked them to leash their dog (who wasn’t supposed to be on the beach in the first place)
- Having to hear people bitch about the validity of your job and where their tax dollars were going, or saying, “Is this a volunteer summer internship? How cute! I would love to do something like this” No, I have a full-blown wildlife degree to do this JOB.
Started grad school at URI in Sept 2021
Finished grad school May 2024
August 2024
PERMANENT JOB WITH BENEFITS!!
I had around 10 seasonal jobs, and 7 total years of school before landing the permanent job with benefits. It took 12 years. The people that were recently fired had similar career trajectories as me. That’s why I'm so heartbroken. Because I know how much dedication, passion, sacrifice, and hard work it took to get to where they were. I know they took their jobs seriously and that they performed their duties exceptionally well. You have to in this field of work. It’s so competitive, and there’s not much money in the environmental world (unless you work in consulting). In fact, we solely rely off of federal funds to keep these lands, species, and natural resources healthy and functioning. This is because the environment doesn’t provide a “service” or “product” for people to buy into. That’s why we always say, you can’t put a price tag on the environment. We can’t “sell” the experience of hiking to a stunning view that leaves you speechless. Clean air, water, and food are fundamental to survival for all species. You can’t assign a monetary value to something that sustains all life.
So where do we go from here? Honestly, I don’t know. Right now, it feels bleak. I wish I had something hopeful to say, but the truth is, I just want to acknowledge the people who are out there—selflessly putting the environment first. The ones fighting to protect what’s left, ensuring that future generations will still have the chance to experience the wonder and awe of this beautiful country we call home. They are essential. Their work matters. And I hope, somehow, it’s enough.
Comments