Biologist – Program Wildlife Biologist

Job Overview\:  

The incumbent organizes, coordinates and implements a statewide wildlife management program for forested state trust lands, under general supervision.  Advises DNRC personnel, including three Area biologists, in matters related to management of federally listed Threatened and Endangered species, wildlife habitat, forest ecology, and forest management.  Recommends statewide policy, programs, habitat models and actions that develop, preserve, or maintain wildlife habitats and associated populations.  Represents the Department and Division on state and federal interagency committees and working groups such as the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Subcommittee and Montana Natural Heritage Program Partners group.  Forms, coordinates, and serves on internal DNRC working groups formed to facilitate development of state forest management policy and procedures.  Selects from a variety of established scientific research methods and techniques appropriate to specific data collection, modeling, and analysis needs to perform a wide variety of tasks.  Coordinates project activities, analyzes data, integrates natural resource policy and research through scientific literature review, and provides recommendations through oral and written technical reports.  Considerable professional judgment, data management, and writing skills are needed to recognize, interpret, and correlate a diverse and ever-expanding body of information on many aspects of wildlife habitat management, conservation biology, forestry, and climate change.  The position is solely responsible for the technical accuracy of work.  

Knowledge\:

Extensive knowledge of, and considerable experience in, applying principles of wildlife biology, habitat management, landscape ecology, forest ecology, range management and silviculture; monitoring principles and techniques; gathering, analyzing, interpreting and synthesizing data; principles and techniques of computer modeling.  Extensive knowledge of terrestrial vertebrate animal species, their life history requirements and ecological relationships is required.  Familiarity with and use of ever-expanding technical wildlife-related literature and federal, state, and local laws and regulations relating to habitat management and land use practices is required.  Requires considerable knowledge of forest management practices, logging systems and other resource programs, practices and problems. Considerable knowledge of administrative practices, policy, procedures, and local politics is required.  Incumbent must have considerable knowledge of training plan development and techniques.

Skills\:

Requires extensive skill in oral and written communication, quantitative analysis, and applying analytical and research concepts, principles, and techniques of investigating plant and animal communities.  Requires considerable ability to process data and to statistically analyze data using digital technology.  Requires considerable skill in organization, interpretation, evaluation and reporting of results and findings. Incumbent must be highly skilled in applying wildlife biology concepts and principles for identification and delineation of diverse habitat features, integration of habitat needs for many species with conflicting needs, analyzing for environmental effects, writing EA’s and EIS’s, defending conclusions to the public, managers and in court, recommending and developing environmental protection measures including (SFLMP) Standards and ARMs, and developing innovative recommendations where no Standards or ARMs exist.

Abilities\:

Requires a high degree of technical judgment, initiative, creativity, imagination, and originality to develop statewide agency policy, rules, and recommendations; to implement specific management plans that are integrated with multiple objectives; to recognize and evaluate new approaches or techniques in problem-solving; to communicate and cooperate effectively on teams with individuals possessing varying viewpoints and diverse personalities; and to overcome difficult on-the-ground situations that may require deviations from established practices.  Requires ability to integrate multidisciplinary resource concerns with wildlife issues and formulate management alternatives that address multiple issues.  Incumbent must be able to evaluate technical scientific publications and communicate findings effectively, both in writing and orally. Also required is the ability to work independently and prioritize complex workloads with explicit deadlines; the ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships within the agency, with professionals from other state and federal agencies and industry, and with the general public to address controversial matters; the ability to negotiate effectively, and to exchange technical information; the ability to exercise sound professional judgment and maintain professional objectivity in evaluating and addressing contentious issues; the ability to establish and maintain effective communications with the public and other professionals, both verbally and in writing; and the ability to successfully interact with members of the public, a wide range of interest groups, other land management agencies, corporations, and private landowners.