Position: Wildlife Monitoring Coordinator
Location: Osa Conservation Campus
Status: Full-time
The Osa Conservation Wildlife Program’s mission is to protect, restore and safeguard Osa’s wildlife for future generations. It does this by combating four major threats: 1) poaching, 2) data gaps in wildlife populations, 3) habitat fragmentation and 4) climate change. The program combats these four major threats via executing ecosystem-scale data collection, trialing and implementing conservation technologies, and recruiting region-wide stakeholder participation and citizen science to restore degraded and disconnected habitats and rewild lost wildlife populations. These actions allow long-term viable wildlife populations to be restored and maintained for healthy ecosystem function.
The Wildlife Monitoring Coordinator will assess the health and status of the Osa wildlife community and explore new approaches to overcome the challenges listed above. This person will do this by executing regional-scale wildlife assessments, mitigating unnatural barriers (roads & fences), evaluating the success of restoration approaches, and implementing technology in monitoring and protection efforts. In addition, to analyze data collected from wildlife program projects to communicate and publish results, building collaborative partnerships to improve impact and scale, fundraising and writing grants to keep the program growing and participation in social networks to communicate their work. This person will work alongside other OC science program teams, interacting with donors, school groups, and researchers to increase the success and longevity of the program and organization mission. This role requires the person in charge to be based at the Osa Conservation Campus on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. The Wildlife Monitoring Coordinator will live on site with a multicultural team. They must be willing to travel to remote stations and live in basic conditions and facilities for short periods of time to carry out fieldwork. It will require a passionate and hard-working individual.
How to apply:
To apply, please send a CV and a one page cover letter to hr@osaconservation.org with the subject line “Wildlife Monitoring Coordinator” by November 21, 2022. All applicants who do not follow this guide will not be considered. Only successful applicants who proceed to the interview stage will be contacted. We especially welcome applicants from Costa Rica and Latin America.
Roles and responsibilities / funciones y responsabilidades:
- Coordinate field activities and manage equipment with staff, interns, volunteers, fellows, and community members, for a variety of wildlife monitoring projects.
- Coordinate and support the field team to install and maintain camera traps in OC properties for long-term wildlife monitoring and conservation technology trials along with combating wildlife hunting in OC.
- Tree climb to install, maintain and monitor tree crossings over roads to connect patches of fragmented forest and test different bridge designs to increase arboreal wildlife population occupancy and movements (training in tree climbing will be provided if no experience- but a willingness to learn is essential).
- Execute the biodiversity assessment of the OC restoration experiment by coordinating the surveys of birds, butterflies, dung beetles, and amphibians in 40 restoration plots. Bring new researchers and collaborators from local and international universities to use this experiment as an opportunity to conduct educational and research activities.
- Coordinate and organize the logistics for expeditions in Fila Costeña, a remote area located in the biological corridor that connects the Osa Peninsula with the highlands. The objective of the expeditions is to conduct wildlife monitoring; the results will be used to assess the potential of the area for protection purposes.
- Assist in developing rewilding projects of key species that have partially or totally disappeared from Costa Rica (Giant Anteater, Harpy Eagle, and White-lipped peccary). Including permit submission, contacting key collaborators, and grant applications.
- Support the development of a data management pipeline for all biodiversity-related information collected by the Wildlife Program. This will include, for example, the curation of large data sets and uploading the camera trapping data collected by the Programme to the Wildlife Insights platform.
- Support data analyses and the utilization of data collected for producing high-level technical reports and scientific publications. This will include, for example, the production of a detailed technical report for the construction of a wildlife crossing structure along the Inter-American Highway that disconnects the Osa from the mainland. Publish and share the information with government entities, conservation organizations, key community members, and donors.
- Support e general Wildlife Program activities such as monthly equipment inventories, training for staff, program field assistants, interns and volunteers, produce social media content for OCs and personal accounts, create and deliver Wildlife Program presentations to visiting groups and collaborators, produce weekly progress reports for the program manager, and any other activities requested by the Wildlife Program Manager.
- Assist the Wildlife Program Manager in fundraising and reporting activities.
- Execute general activities to support other science OC programs, OC properties, including Osa Conservation Campus to achieve the organization mission.
- Minimum master degree in wildlife conservation, biology or environmental science.
- Driver license B1 (manual and automatic) and experience driving on dirt roads in remote locations.
- Advanced level of Spanish and English (written and oral).
- Knowledge and relevant experience on executing biodiversity assessments , good experimental design and understanding of ecological concepts.
- Experience working long hours in hard environmental conditions. Good physical condition. Tree climbing experience is desired, but not mandatory.
- Personal attributes: strong initiative, ability to work independently as well as part of a team, team worker, positive attitude, innovative, hardworking, able to work under pressure, results oriented, problem solver, good communication and presentation skills, and comfortable/capable to travel around Costa Rica independently.
- Excellent IT skills: Office, Gmail, Google Calendar, data analysis software (software R) & (QGIS / ArcGIS).
- Scientific writing skills – experience in publishing in peer-reviewed journals.
- Execute expeditions to to Fila Costeña to evaluate the potential of the area for wildlife protection in the biological corridor.10%
- Maintain and install camera traps for wildlife long-term monitoring in the OC-protected properties.10%
- Support reintroduction projects for key species that have disappeared regionally, such as the Giant anteater. 10%
- Install, maintain, and monitor tree crossings above roads. 20%
- Generate designs of wildlife crossings according to the territory along a sector of the Inter-American Highway. Communication with key actors of this information. 10%
- Assess the wildlife recovery success of the OC restoration experiment by coordinating surveys of birds, butterflies, dung beetles, and amphibians. 20%
- Lead the Wildlife Program team in general program activities and field work, including fundraising. 10%
- Support and coordinate other activities as required with the different OC science and conservation programs in the different OC properties, including the Osa Conservation Campus, to achieve the organization’s mission. 10%
