More and more zoos operate open-park facilities, as opposed to keeping animals in cement-floored cages. Animal behaviorists teach zoo owners about the needs of the different animals, for example, which animals can be kept in the same park space together and which must be separated.
The ideal animal behaviorist is someone who has experience handling animals and who is professionally trained in the areas of the scientific analysis of behavior, as well as being trained to counsel people about animals.
CAREER OPTIONS
Independent Trainers
Many animal behaviorists work independently and offer training programs to pet owners. Your best referral sources are veterinarians. People in the United States think that veterinarians are pet gods, and so they ask them everything. If you don't have the support of the veterinarians in your local community, you're going to have a rough go of it. You have to advertise and market yourself.
Teaching
Many animal behaviorists stay in the academic world where they pass on their experience and research to university students. Just as with any professorial post, you would need your doctorate and to meet the specific requirements of the hiring department.
Animal Assisted Therapy
Another arena in which people work is animal assisted therapy. Animal assisted therapy is where animals become part of the therapeutic process. They can be used with people who have a wide range of problems, anything from a social dog for a child who has emotional/social problems up through people who need the dog as a prosthesis, as a seeing eye, hearing ear, or seizure alert dog, for example. Animal behaviorists train animals for these roles.
Medical Research
As any animal lover knows, research using animals is a controversial subject, to say the least. However, anyone developing medications or procedures for animals is going to need the services of someone trained in evaluating behavior at some point-and should. Too often they haven't. What they've typically done is gone to veterinarians who may not have had any training in animal behavior and most often don't. An animal behaviorist working with scientists for the betterment of animals can ensure that humane practices are followed.
Training Trainers
Teaching other people how to train animals is a viable career path for animal behaviorists. Although the notion of training animals for circuses or television or film work might be abhorrent to some (there are many people who believe that animals should be left in the wild and not used for any purpose related to mankind's needs), as mentioned earlier, animals can humanely be trained to interact with humans in a therapeutic setting.
There are a lot of folks out there who still believe that punishment is the most effective and most efficient way to train. If you get a trainer who believes that and also does not have good anger management, then the potential for abuse arises very quickly. I spend a lot of time trying to educate people about what it means to be a humane trainer. What we teach is essentially the same thing that is taught in positive parenting classes. Rewarding good behavior, ignoring the bad. That's traditional behavior modification.
INCOME FOR ANIMAL BEHAVIORISTS
Salaries would vary widely depending upon the specific work you do and the area in the country in which you live. Those working for a university would expect to be on the same pay scale as any other faculty member of the same rank and experience.
As a consultant and trainer, Mary Lee Nitschke says, "I charge everyone $90 an hour, no matter what I'm doing for them. I set that fee based on the average fee that psychologists charge in my area. And it's about to go up. I'll probably go up to $100 or a little over that. Right now, we have about twenty different classes, and the cost is about $85 to $90 for a set of six classes per student."
VACATION SCHOLARSHIPS
Vacation scholarships are available through the Association for the Study of Animal Behavior for undergraduates to undertake supervised research projects lasting from one to eight weeks during academic vacations under the auspices of institutions of higher education.
Undergraduates may also apply for scholarships for research to be carried out in the period immediately following graduation.
Awards will not be granted for work that is part of a degree program. Projects must fall within the field of animal behavior.
The scholarship will offer an amount toward living expenses for the student and an amount toward research project expenses for the participating institution. The amounts awarded are calculated on the basis of a weekly rate, which is reviewed annually. In 1996 these rates were £75 per week towards living expenses and £25 per week towards research expenses.
