This is silly. People are letting their own experiences determine their responses.
There is no need to get upset.
Jeez Etty, there was us thinking life experiences were worth responding to.
The question was "career or business with birds".
No, that was the thread title, the question was
does anyone here do this for a living? if so does anyone have ideas of what someone might be able to do if you are a bird lover and want a career change that you could work with birds all day? or a business involving them?
We have an idea- and that idea is
'think very carefully'. We're showing people that you can easily lose that love for birds when you work with them every day. No raised expectations. No rose-coloured spectacles. No 'can do' attitude here I'm afraid.
Imo, there is plenty of opportunity, starting with the defense and natural resource industries.
IMO.. opinions are formed from experiences. If they're informed opinions that is.
There are probably more bird specific opportunities with the power generation (windmills) firms, but that is a small subset.
My experi.. opinion on natural resource industries, based on fifteen years bird ringing inside an oil-fired station and a coal-fired station is they are great for birds, but nowadays if you work there, you won't enjoy them because H&S and terrorist threats will get in the way of you doing anything like lift a pair of bins on site. My old ringing trainer is a Field Centre manager at one, who nowadays can't have any adult groups come to visit his nature reserve in the power station grounds because of the possibility that green protestors might infiltrate the site. Trust this opinion, its only going to get worse. And guess, what, the windfarms are owned by the same peeps, and they don't particularly want their staff showing an interest in blades and birds..
In the main they leave the birds to the environmental consultants. Who often know a good deal less about birds than we'd dare think. When I was at the Bird Obs I did a bit of sub-contracted survey work for consultants because their own paid troops weren't up to it. Of a dozen or so friends actually in that profession, I know of only one who really enjoys it, because at the end of the day they're really only managing some limited damage limitation, and it's bloomin' depressing..
None of these jobs are purely birds specific, but all allow you to spend a lot of time in the field and perhaps to have more impact than a more bird focused job.
Not in relation to the actual question they won't. Don't get me started on 'defence' btw.. C'mon, employers soon get pretty dang pee'd off with people slacking off from the specific task at hand in this day and age. Presenteeism anyone?
Sorry if this seems a little harsh to you Etty, but it isn't written for you. If someone, reading all this,
still comes through it thinking they want to go into a bird-related career, then great, they're half-way to achieving it, because they're eyes are half-opened and their dreams are shattered. If they're not, then they've lost already. This is the real world, not where we escape to. I've had to hire people for this bird-related work lark, and I can assure you the dreamers, the idealists, the half-baked, the eco-warriers and the bunnie-huggers don't even make it to interview nowadays*
DunnoKev
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MD, Thersites and Pandarus, Environmental Consultants
*Unless it's for PETA