While I spent many years as a seasonal wildlife biology technician, my more recent experience has been as an academic. While I feel that the life of a field tech better represents who I am, it’s hard to totally take the academic out of me. The following reads as much like a research paper as it does like a blog post; this is because I feel it’s important to provide adeqaute context for the story I’m telling here which relates to the stories not being told – those of minority field techs. In this post, I bring in scholarly research to help explain the myriad reasons why minority representation is so lacking among biology field technicians.
Note: this post references interviews I conducted while visiting several field biology crews in the US.
As the continuing concerns of habitat loss and decreased funding for scientific research loom largest among the threats to the practice of biology, questions related to the future of field biology technicians arise. Will there continue to be a need for a nomadic seasonal workforce in biology? If so, what will the next generation of field techs look like? Will it be similar to the current one?
Despite the threats mentioned before and rapid developments in technologies which may automate some tasks traditionally carried out by field techs, the demand for these workers doesn’t seem to be slowing down quite yet. For example, 91 positions were posted on the Texas A&M job board on April 25, 2023 by entities including federal and state wildlife agencies, divisions of the military, public universities, non-profit organizations, environmental consultants, and commercial laboratories.
But what about the supply side of the equation? Which is to say, will (primarily young) people continue to want to take low-paying seasonal jobs and live an unglamorous and unstable life, one which limits their ability to participate in social media and binge watch streaming content? One could argue that those who would rather watch an entire season of a show in a single day or weekend (such as the hundreds of thousands who watched the entirety of Stranger Things’ 4th season on Netflix in this manner) or would rather scroll through Instagram or TikTok for hours at a time may represent a segment of society that wouldn’t produce field techs. But what about those who would want to and be physically capable of doing so but would be prevented from doing so by forces beyond their control?
Barriers of Race and Class
Race and economic status serve as barriers preventing individuals from replenishing the ranks of field techs who lose interest in the lifestyle or can no longer handle the physical or mental challenges. While issues of class and race are impossible to separate cleanly, I’ll focus on class more broadly first before looking at the thornier issue of race.
An obvious economic barrier is created by the “entry costs” to becoming a field tech which can be prohibitive; this includes at least a full complement of outdoor clothing and gear and most likely a reliable form of transportation as well. Jenny McKee of Audubon Magazine cited a 2015 study (Fournier and Bond) which found that about a third of jobs posted on two major job boards were unpaid or offered less than $300 per month stipends. Jensen (2021) conducted a review of a sample of postings on Texas A&M and other field biology job boards and determined that the hourly pay among paid positions in the sample was $10.48, below minimum wage in half of US states.
While having minimal expenses and thrifty living allow some field techs to have positive cash flow while working field jobs, assistance from others in their lives (such as being on a parent’s health insurance plan or using their car) is a big part of making this possible. Without an economic safety net, life as a field tech would be difficult to manage, and this doesn’t account for potentially large expenses such as car repairs or medical bills for those without high quality health insurance.
The term “declining middle class” has become a catchphrase of sorts, but statistics support the contention that the cost of living is rising in relation to income for a large segment of American society. The Pew Research Center reported that 50% of American households in 2021 are classified as middle class, down from 61% fifty years earlier; however, the standard definition of middle class includes household incomes as low as $47,189. Meanwhile, the percentage of American households below middle class increased from 25% to 29% and the aggregate income earned by the middle class was reduced from 62% to 42% in this same time span. Reduced savings and increased credit card debt accompany these growing financial hardships. While the benefits of connection to nature are well-documented (Hartig et al 2014, Lee et al 2022), participating in the potentially expensive pursuit of wildlife watching let alone following a career path as a seasonal field tech can easily be regarded as frivolous and simply unfeasible given these economic realities.
Indeed, the change in neighborhood composition which mirrors the overall economic status of its inhabitants is likely to reduce the connection to nature for this shrinking middle and growing lower class. Using Nashville as a case study reflective of national trends, the New York Times reported that the percentage of families living in middle class neighborhoods has shrunk. A study by the Brookings Institution mirrors these findings, reporting that the percentage of middle-income neighborhoods in metropolitan areas declined from 58% to 41% from 1970-2000. Low-income neighborhoods are less likely to have green spaces which would serve as locations where children can develop a connection to nature and wildlife, an important predictor of becoming a biologist. All of this suggests that the available pool of future field technicians is shrinking simply as a result of prevailing economic trends.
While socioeconomic status has a major effect on who’s likely to become a field tech, my observations led me to conclude that race and ethnicity play an even more important role. There was no need for me to conduct research which led to this conclusion in a scientific manner for one simple reason: every field tech working on all of the projects I visited was white. I observed little diversity of any type except for geographic diversity within the US; between the twenty-one techs I spent time with, all major regions of the US were represented along with the Canadian province of Ontario. The only trace of diversity that registered was in sexual preference, with one member of the Spotted Owl crew being the only openly gay individual. There were fourteen males and seven females.
1980’s or 1880’s?
The issue of diversity among field techs, or more accurately the lack of it, came up in my evening conversations with the hawkwatching crew I visited in New Mexico. Of the seven members of that crew, none had worked with a person of color before. While sitting by the fire after work one evening, a tech named Jim related a story told to him by someone he’d worked with on a previous project.
“She was working near a small town in Arkansas and she brought her boyfriend to stay with her for the season. He was a black guy, biiiig dude,” spreading his arms out to indicate the bulk of the person being described. “With long dreads too. She told me he was walking around the town one day and then a sheriff pulled up to him…”
“Oh god,” some of the others reacted.
“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” he went on. “Apparently the cop was very nice, but he says ‘Now, I don’t have any problem with you, and sorry to have to tell you this, but it’s not safe for you to be walking around out here.’”
“Holy shit!”
“Apparently,” Jim continued, “there had been a lynching there in the eighties.”
“The eighties?!”
“The nineteen eighties?”
“Wow.”
“I mean, I don’t know that for sure, this story is secondhand, but that’s what she told me,” he concluded. In light of this shocking story, it isn’t a surprise that field crews are made up almost entirely of White techs.
Demographic Mismatch
When we consider the future of field techs, currently a mostly homogenous group, we have to consider it in light of the major demographic shift occurring in the US. The New York Times reported that 2012 was the first year in which more non-White than white babies were born in the country (Tavernise 2012) and the US Census Bureau (2018) predicts that the percentage of Americans who are White will dip below 50% for the first time in 2045. While this shift in raw demographics is reflected in minority representation in many industries and institutions, the field of biology and natural resources lags far behind.
African-Americans and Latinos make up 13 and 19 percent of the population respectively but represent only 3 and 9 percent of practicing wildlife biologists. Jensen (2021) reports that Latinos make up a meager 4% of the natural resources workforce. The situation in academia is similar — African-Americans and Latinos hold 6 and 8% of PhD’s in biology (NSF 2016) and only 15% of full professors in wildlife are non-White (Waits et al 2022). However, these statistics describing biologists include an unspecified number whose work takes place mostly or entirely in the lab meaning that an even lower percentage is engaged in field work.
While cultural and institutional barriers may prevent people of color from entering the field of biology and advancing within it, the problem is magnified when applied specifically to the subset of field biologists and field techs. Recent scholarly literature on the topic suggests that the almost complete dominance of White individuals in the field tech industry results from a host of interrelated historical and cultural factors, many of which impact minority experiences in the US in a more general sense.
Perhaps the most proximate of these factors is the lack of outdoor experience among minority populations; African-Americans make up only 2% of national park visitors while Asian and Latinos each make up less than 5% (Scott and Lee 2018), 88% of campers are White (KOA 2021) as are 95% of National Forest visitors (Flores et al. 2018). In some sense, the reason for these reduced rates of outdoor activity among minorities is circular: minorities don’t engage in these activities because they aren’t part of their traditional culture (Kinka 2017, Dietsch et al. 2021).
Gaining outdoor skills depends heavily on being mentored and learning these skills at a young age, usually from a family member of an older generation (Dietsch et al 2021). Therefore it’s easy to see that this is a cycle from which it may be difficult to break free. While prominent figures promoting outdoor activities in minority youth have emerged to fulfill the mentoring role that’s an important part of breaking this cycle (see organizations like Vibe Tribe Adventures, Melanin Basecamp, and many others), I found through personal correspondence that knowledge about minority representation among field techs is scant and discussion of the topic is limited.
The same is true regarding scholarly literature which again focuses much more heavily on minority access and engagement in outdoor recreation in general while a specific emphasis on biology fieldwork has only gained more traction in the past few years. What we see then might be considered to be primarily a lack of awareness regarding the option of being a field tech within minority communities.
The Scars of Historical Traumas
The historical reasons why minority Americans have become accustomed to avoiding parks and outdoor activity may be difficult for individuals who take these activities for granted to understand. Regarding working outdoors, certain minority cultures share a perception that this type of work is likely to be low wage or at least low status. Dietsch et al (2021) provided anonymous testimony from a Latino participant in a community workshop about minority engagement in outdoor activity offered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service at a National Wildlife Refuge:
I told my grandmother I was going to be a wildlife biologist and work outdoors. She said, “No, no, we worked too hard for you to be outdoors.” People equate working in an office with upper-level positions.
An even more painful association exists regarding cultural perceptions of outdoor work: the form of slave labor that was extracted from people of African descent for centuries in North America (Segran 2021).
Official storytelling within parks focuses primarily on white settlers and stakeholders while the stories of minority individuals are far less prominent (Schultz et al 2019). Before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, areas within National Parks such as picnic areas were openly segregated or completely off-limits to African-Americans. Currently, treatment from park employees and visitors, often subtly and unintentionally, can make minority individuals uncomfortable. Certain behavioral expectations which are not shared between cultures are tacitly imposed on visitors who draw ire and suspicion by violating these expectations simply by acting in accordance with their own cultural norms (Scott and Lee 2018).
As mentioned before, socioeconomic status is closely correlated with race, and economic factors are likely to play a role in preventing people of color from visiting national parks and other outdoor recreation areas as the costs of traveling to and staying in these areas may be prohibitive. In another example of a cyclical barrier restricting minority access to natural spaces, African-Americans and Latinos experience higher rates of poverty and unemployment (US Census Bureau 2022) and also tend to occupy urban areas far from parks and refuges (Xiao et al 2021); accessing them therefore requires traveling greater distances, making the prospect of park visitation more expensive (Perry et al 2015).
These factors are also likely to prevent minorities specifically from pursuing work as field technicians. The study by Jensen (2021) mentioned earlier which determined that the hourly pay among a sample of postings for paid field tech positions was $10.48 conducted a related survey and found that low pay was cited as a barrier to field work more often among people of color than White individuals. Another consideration is that many field jobs require or prefer applicants to have obtained bachelor’s degrees; the Pew Research Center (2022) reports that the percentage of African-Americans and Latinos over age 25 with bachelor’s degrees is 28.1% and 20.6% respectively compared to 41.9% in White Americans.
Danger in the Field
While these factors contribute to preventing minority individuals from starting out as field techs, sobering reports from those who have conducted fieldwork almost certainly prevent others from following their example. Field technicians of color can face both covert and overt signals that their presence isn’t appreciated or wanted in certain areas. We saw this to be the case in the story about the dangerous situation the Black partner of a field tech faced in rural Arkansas just by walking down the street.
The leading biology journal Nature published an account of a pair of Black field biologists in Missouri under the stark and unambiguous title “Racism and harassment are common in field research – scientists are speaking up” (Viglione 2020). The article describes how the pair’s vehicle was hemmed in by those of several locals, rendering them unable to move in a very threatening and undoubtedly terrifying situation
A better known notorious example relates to birds which is especially worth noting in our current discussion as birding is considered as a White pursuit (including within the Black community). In May of 2020, a Black birder named Christian Cooper was birding in New York City’s Central Park in the early morning and asked a White woman named Amy Cooper to comply with park regulations and leash her dog. As the incident escalated, Christian recorded the interaction during which Amy called 911 and said “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.” In addition to the video garnering over forty million views on Twitter and another million or so on YouTube, the original story and follow up was covered by all of the largest media outlets in the US as well as international majors like CBC and the Guardian. The incident which took place in a racially diverse area provided a chilling example of why Black people might hesitate to pursue field work during which they would find themselves alone on private land in mostly White regions of the US where people of color are rarely seen.
Fieldwork often involves accessing private lands where techs walk around while carrying sometimes strange looking equipment. One can imagine how a landowner might react seeing a Black person engaged in this activity. Many techs feel that the greatest dangers one can encounter in the field result from interactions with people; it’s a sad commentary on the current state of our society that people treat each other so poorly and are so willing to harm others. These tendencies towards violence and aggression are only magnified once encounters occur across boundaries of race.
In some cases, the aggression is less direct: it’s not difficult to guess how a Black field technician might feel when observing a Confederate flag hanging from a house or a dark-skinned effigy being hung from a tree limb, both of which have been reported by Black biologists (Demery & Pipkin 2020). High percentages of women and LGBTQ individuals have reported either direct experiences with harassment or feelings of discomfort during fieldwork stemming from sources as varied as language used and stereotypical gender typing of outdoor gear (Lundin & Bombaci 2021). For most techs, the unavoidable errands of going into town to get gas and groceries are mostly uneventful; but these mundane realities of life in the field which most techs likely take for granted take on a much different character for people of color who might be stocking up or trying to grab breakfast in a diner in towns in which none of the residents look like them.
The Costs of Exclusion
Based on these realities, it might be reasonable for crew leaders to hesitate to hire non-White individuals not because of a personal bias against them, but out of concern for their safety. Several potential consequences follow from the severely restricted ability of under-represented minorities to work as field techs. One the one hand, these individuals are deprived of the opportunity to experience nature and encounter wildlife in the uniquely intimate and enriching way described by the field techs I spent time with. So many of them exuded a primal enjoyment of the work and the lifestyle; minorities may simply be missing out on these opportunities to have fun and to explore a non-traditional but spiritually rewarding life path.
However, the practical consequences of lacking access to fieldwork can perhaps be considered more detrimental. Experience as a field tech is recognized as being critical in building a career as an ecologist or wildlife biologist for several reasons: field experience is often an expectation for acceptance into certain graduate programs, the skills learned and cultivated in the field are critical in the practice of biology, fieldwork helps aspiring biologists to cement their self-identification in their chosen profession, and interpersonal networks developed in the course of gaining field experience can result directly in future employment (Morales et al 2020). In a publication from 2021 whose lead author was Colorado State University’s Sarah Whipple, the authors shared a succinct but telling response to a survey they conducted while assessing minority sentiment regarding careers in field biology:
Field work is the “traditional” pathway into many jobs and minority students are systematically left out.
Some of the barriers discussed here which prevent under-represented minorities from considering field biology to be a viable pursuit as a matter of either personal or professional interest are created unintentionally. Increasing awareness of how these subtle but impactful factors steer certain individuals away from pursuing careers in biology can allow universities and public conservation agencies to take steps at an institutional level that could help to address the current and concerning lack of diversity in field biology (Flowers et al 2021, Race et al 2021, Blonder 2023, McDermott et al 2023). Efforts can also be taken to shift cultural attitudes and beliefs within minority groups, some of which have been ingrained for several generations and stem from deep historical traumas (Dietsch et al 2021) as a means of encouraging participation in field biology among younger and future generations.
While a relatively clear path can be outlined when it comes to altering internal barriers which prevent minorities from having access to the benefits of fieldwork, the situation becomes more muddled, perhaps hopelessly so, when we consider how the same type of fundamental changes can be enacted regarding pervasive external barriers, those created by individuals from the dominant culture outside the field of biology. It is unclear how the widespread creation of difficult, dangerous, or uncomfortable situations for field techs of color or non-traditional sexual preferences and gender identification can be prevented absent a sweeping cultural overhaul in American society at large, one which would require a sea change in perspectives and behaviors towards these minoritized groups. Even as steps are taken to narrow the diversity gap in biology as a whole, there isn’t a clear vision of how similar progress towards equitable access can be achieved for field biologists and technicians.