Private Lands Biologist

Description of position:

The Office of Conservation Planning Services (OCPS) is seeking an energetic and motivated candidate to work within a team of wildlife biologists providing assistance to private and public landowners.  This position offers the opportunity to influence management decisions on a landscape level by developing and fostering long-term partnerships with private landowners who own and manage over half of Florida’s natural resources.  

OCPS provides scientific support and technical assistance to a wide array of private and public sector landowners and local, state, and federal governmental entities on habitat-related issues. OCPS develops comprehensive habitat-based management plans, develops and implements incentive programs for private landowners, provides recommendations for implementation of habitat management programs on private and publicly-owned land, and conducts habitat assessments on conservation easements such as gopher tortoise recipient sites. 

The OCPS Northeast/South Region Team’s primary function is development, administration and delivery of voluntary, incentive-based programs including, but not limited to, FARM Bill Conservation Programs, Forest Stewardship Program, Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, Payment for Ecosystem Services Programs, Gopher Tortoise Recipient Site Program, and Private Lands Tool Cache.  This position will have the opportunity to closely coordinate and act as a liaison to implement FARM Bill programs including but not limited to CSP, ACEP, EQIP, and RCPP.  

Duties and responsibilities:

Include but are not limited to building and fostering long-term partnerships with landowners, biological data collection and analysis; writing Conservation Stewardship Plans, reports and land management prescriptions; monitoring and evaluating program-funded fish and wildlife habitat enhancement activities, collecting wildlife observations in the field, and planning and conducting educational workshops/field days.  In addition, the position will assist in the review and comment on resource management plans for military facilities, proposed land use planning changes, county and other land management plans. 

Desired qualifications include:

The ability to positively communicate with a wide variety of landowners who have different land-uses and objectives for their property, passion for motivating landowners to actively manage their habitats in ways that benefit wildlife, the ability and desire to be open-minded while working within a team of biologists to develop long-term partnerships with private landowners, the ability to work as a team as well as work alone when needed, Geographical Information System experience, excellent communicative skills both verbal and written, knowledge of Florida plant/animal communities, knowledge of habitat management techniques, the ability to travel overnight less than 25%, work alone in the field 50% of the time, and public speaking ability.