Wildlife Conservation Society

I’m a nut about wildlife. I don’t watch Animal Planet all day or anything, but I get ridiculously excited when I see a new species in the wild. My hope is to one day run into a mountain lion in the wild, at least as long as I’m not being hunted. As fanatical as I am about wildlife, I bet I don’t even come close to the people at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York City based non-profit. They were founded in 1895 with a “clear mission to save wildlife and wild places across the globe.” Their first major success was aiding the recovery of American Bison, and now they’re working to “protect many of the world’s iconic creatures here and abroad, including gorillas in the Congo, tigers in India, polar bears in the Arctic, and ocean giants in our world’s amazing seascapes.” Beyond doing that, they also run 5 parks in New York City—the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo.

Jobs in the Wild

According to Wildlife Conservation Society’s About page, they’re committed to protecting 25% of the world’s biodiversity. I’m not sure where that number came from, how it’s measured, or what exactly it means, but it sounds like an ambitious goal for a passionate organization. The way that pursues this goal is by focusing on 4 key issues: “climate change; natural resource exploitation; the connection between wildlife health and human health; and the sustainable development of human livelihoods.” With so much on their plate, Wildlife Conservation Society has a lot of job opportunities. You can find all of the information on their Jobs page, where they separate opportunities into New York City Full Time, New York City Seasonal, and Opportunities in the Field. Oddly enough, all of these pages feed into the same job search function. You can narrow down your search by any of the aforementioned categories, or you can just look at all of their job opportunities. You’ll probably want to take an especially long look at the following positions: Development Associate – Operations, Guest Relations Supervisor, Marketing Assistant, Membership Sales Associate, Pathology Technician, Program Assistant – Global Program Development, and Program Coordinator. You can apply for any of these positions online.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• WCS.org
• About Wildlife Conservation Society
• Jobs at Wildlife Conservation Society
• Wildlife Conservation Society in the Press
• Wildlife Conservation Society Multimedia
• Wildlife Conservation Society’s Annual Report

Have you ever been to any of Wildlife Conservation Society’s parks?