Count, track and manage wild animals so governments and companies can decide what happens to their habitat.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$83,000
New graduate
$53,000
Senior or government scientist
$139,000
Job Bank's national median is $40 an hour, about $83,000 a year full time. The page pools wildlife biologists with other life scientists, and in practice government and consulting jobs sit near the middle while the top is senior government science.
$45,000 to $55,000
Seasonal field technician on a survey, banding or telemetry crew
Field seasons are often four to eight months. Many new graduates do two or three of them before anything permanent appears, and camp work usually comes with food and lodging covered.
$75,000 to $110,000
Experienced biologist, either in a consulting firm or a provincial ministry
Consulting pays a bit more up front and expects billable hours. Government pays a bit less with a pension and better job security. Job Bank's high wage is about $66.67 an hour, roughly $139,000 a year full time.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years of biology or wildlife tuition at a cheaper provincial rate plus a basic set of field tickets. The high end is a pricier school, the full ticket set of wilderness first aid, bear safety, chainsaw and off road vehicle training, and the first year of professional registration in British Columbia or Alberta. A master's degree is close to standard for research and government work but is usually funded with a stipend of around 20,000 a year, so it is not added here. A reliable vehicle and good boots are effectively job requirements and are not counted as entry costs, but plan for them.
Budget for a reliable vehicle and good boots. Both are effectively job requirements.
Provincial ministries
Fish and wildlife branches that set hunting quotas and manage species at risk.
Federal government
The Canadian Wildlife Service and Parks Canada, under Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Environmental consulting
Wildlife surveys and impact assessments for mines, roads, pipelines and wind projects. The largest private employer.
First Nations and land trusts
A growing share of the work, especially in guardian and stewardship programs.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
The degree is the entry ticket. Field seasons and a professional registration are what turn it into a career.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, chemistry and math. Get a driver's licence as early as you can, because field jobs assume it.
Biology, wildlife or natural resources degree
4 years
Four years. Guelph, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Lakehead, the University of Northern British Columbia and Acadia all run relevant programs. A college fish and wildlife diploma is a cheaper technician route.
Field seasons
2 to 3 summers
Bird banding, ungulate surveys, camera traps, vegetation plots. Apply in January for the coming summer, every year, everywhere.
Master's degree
2 years
The usual step up from technician to biologist. Funded, and built around a real management question.
Professional registration, in the west
After 2 to 4 years of work
In British Columbia and Alberta you register after a degree plus supervised experience so you can sign off on assessments.
Biology
Ecology, genetics and animal physiology.
Math and data management
Population estimates are statistics. There is much more math here than students expect.
Geography
Maps, landforms and land use, which is the daily language of the job.
Shop or outdoor education
Being practical with vehicles, boats and gear genuinely helps in the field.
In British Columbia, applied biology is a regulated profession, and work such as habitat assessment is reserved for registrants of the College of Applied Biologists who hold the Registered Professional Biologist (R.P.Bio) title. Alberta has a parallel system through the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists, which grants the Professional Biologist (P.Biol) designation. In the rest of Canada there is no registration requirement, and the job title is open to anyone.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Species identification by sight and sound
Bird song identification alone can get you onto survey crews every spring.
Mapping software
Geographic information systems. Almost every wildlife report is a map plus an argument.
Statistics and the R programming language
Occupancy and abundance models are the core analysis in the field.
Animal handling and telemetry
Netting, collaring and tracking. Learned on crews, not in class.
Wilderness first aid and bear safety
Most field employers require both before you set foot in camp.
Off-road driving, boat and snowmobile tickets
Cheap, and they widen the jobs you can take.
Comfort working with communities
A lot of wildlife work now happens with First Nations partners, and being able to listen matters as much as the science.
A two-year college diploma in fish and wildlife technology gets you onto field crews faster and cheaper than a degree. You will be counting, trapping and measuring rather than designing studies, and the pay ceiling is lower, but plenty of people build a full career this way, especially in provincial agencies and parks. Some later bridge into a degree with credit for the diploma.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In season, you are up in the dark to reach a survey point at sunrise, then walking transects, checking cameras or collars, and recording everything in a tablet or a waterproof notebook. Bugs, weather and long drives on logging roads are the constant. Out of season you are at a desk: entering and cleaning data, running models, writing reports and permit applications, and explaining to someone who wants to build something why the answer is complicated.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Woodland caribou herds are monitored with satellite collars because the animals move across huge, roadless ranges. A single herd's data set can cover tens of thousands of square kilometres.
Canadian migration monitoring stations band hundreds of thousands of birds a year, and most of the hands doing it are seasonal staff and volunteers. It is the classic first line on a wildlife resume.
About two thirds of the world's polar bears live in Canada, so most long term polar bear population research happens here, largely out of Manitoba, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.