Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists

Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Camera-trap image sorting, BirdNET-style acoustic ID, occupancy models in unmarked, and the first draft of a biological assessment are all things software now does at speed, but nobody has automated setting a mist net at the right height in the right flyway, sexing a sedated bear, or reading a fresh browse line — the 11 reflects that the field half stays and the analysis-and-writing half is already leaking.

Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. A 14 covers work where the sampling site is the office: hip waders in spring runoff, elk capture from a helicopter, scat transects on unmaintained trails, necropsy on a carcass in whatever condition you found it — uncontrolled ground and weather, though not the sustained physical extremity of a smokejumper or commercial diver.

No licence, no signature requirement. There is no state licensure for zoologists; the 4 exists only because collection, banding, and Section 10 take permits are issued to a named individual with demonstrated competency, so USFWS or a state agency can pull your authorization — but the permit follows the project, not a protected title, and a technician or contractor can hold it.

Some relationship component. A 7 reflects that landowners granting survey access, tribal co-management partners, and the agency biologist who has to defend your numbers at a public comment hearing all deal with you specifically, but the deliverable is a dataset and a report that another qualified biologist could have produced identically.

Meaningful discretion. The 11 sits on real calls — declaring a nest active, setting a take threshold, deciding a population estimate is robust enough to underwrite a listing or delisting decision — but those calls go through agency review, peer review, and established survey protocols before anyone acts on them, so you are rarely the last signature.