my name is Ainsley Smith I'm 30 I'm an
environmental specialist and I make
about fifty nine thousand dollars a year
as an environmental specialist I am a
government contractor so I'm not a
government employee I work through my
contractor with NOAA which is the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in the protected
Resources Division within NOAA protected
resources oversees any animal that's on
the endangered species list or protected
under the Marine Mammal Protection Act
so we work with sea turtles whales
salmon sturgeon and basically you want
to ensure the health and survival of
these species and different regulations
that protect them from diseases from
incidental take in marine debris or
fisheries or from projects that are
going on in the ocean so right now I
work with two different teams within
protected resources the section 7 team
primarily deals with consultations with
other federal agencies so working with
them I would correspond with federal
agencies about their project plans I
also work on some smaller projects like
updating our website so we are conveying
the best available science to the public
and to those agencies we work with I do
some projects on efficiency and
administrative procedures and I also
review our endangered species observers
which are people that are out on federal
projects working say with the army or on
a fishery research project and they are
the ones who are reviewing what's going
on on the water more recently I became
part of the marine mammal and sea turtle
team which handles stranding and
disentanglement
from Maine to Virginia my role on that
team is right now a supportive role so I
will answer the on call phone if someone
needs to report a stranding animal in
our area I help with data base entry and
administration filing pictures and
reports as they come in dispatching
calls if we receive a call we need to
make sure the appropriate network
responders are working on that so we'll
relay back and forth we share
information with the Coast Guard with
local Harbor masters Marine Patrol and
still new to the team but I'm being
trained and
stranding and disentanglement protocols
so eventually if there was a situation
in our response area which is about the
North Shore of Massachusetts I would be
able to assist our team and our other
trained responders and be able to assist
with a stranded marine mammal like a
dolphin or a seal or eventually the
disentanglement of an animal like a sea
turtle or whale who's been caught up in
marine debris or fishing gear and able
to safely work with our other teams to
free that animal and hopefully get it
back out into the ocean an additional
part of my job on the marine mammal and
sea turtle team is transporting animals
in the fall and the winter we see a lot
of stranded sea turtles on Cape Cod and
we have volunteers who have been trained
to take those animals to New England
Aquarium for rehabilitation but once
they're there they need to be
transferred sometimes down south or to
other facilities for long-term care
before they're released back to the
ocean so we coordinate with facilities
like aquariums or animal rehab centers
and then we help to transport the
animals either in our van or taking them
to the airport and working with private
pilot's you donate their time and
bringing those animals to other
facilities where they can be cared for
and then release back into the ocean the
animals we see are very seasonally
dependent up here in the summer whales
in sea turtles will be up in this area
feeding and making their way up to
Canada and in the fall we see them going
back down south so our busiest time is
actually fall into winter when sea
turtles are coming from the Gulf of
Maine and they're trying to get back
down south they tend to get stuck in the
Hook of Cape Cod and they don't know how
to go around it so they tend to wash up
on the beaches on Cape Cod so our
busiest season is working with our
trained volunteers who pick those
animals up and bring them to the
aquarium for care and coordinating the
care and transport of sometimes hundreds
of sea turtles in you know between
Thanksgiving and Christmas which is
everybody's favorite time to take off
and do family events but also when we've
got the most sea turtles another part of
my job is to do some education and
outreach so we have education
specialists who do that full-time but we
also take other staff and we do events
like endangered species day at the zoo
where we take
some big blowup sea turtles and blow-up
whale with us and we as you keep the
general public about what NOAA does up
here a lot of people think that NOAA is
just the weather or just fisheries
management but a lot of people don't
know there's so much more starting kids
young is just such a great opportunity
to get them aware of different issues
like marine debris that affect our
marine animals and also what to do so
they are safe and helpful if they see an
animal that needs help
so probably the biggest challenge coming
from field work positions was
readjusting to sitting at a desk and
being in an office again it's not always
the most glamorous we do a lot of
paperwork and a lot of database
management and keeping files organized
on our computers and it's hard to
compare that to oh it's a beautiful day
and I'd rather be out on a boat we're
out doing fieldwork and observations but
it's a trade off and we do have great
days and you have to remember that it's
a little balance of everything at this
point
so I make about fifty nine thousand
dollars a year right now and going in to
marine biology and coastal management I
wasn't particularly focused on what the
salary would be like I just knew that it
was in my heart it was what I had to do
and I just had to do it and I would
figure out a way to make things work and
if they didn't work couldn't I keep
figuring it out in marine biology and
biology in general there's a pretty wide
range depending on who or what you work
for
so working for a non-profit you could
make significantly less I've worked in
nonprofits right made you know ten or
twelve dollars an hour doing field work
which is a lot of fun but it doesn't
always pay the bills biologists that
work for consulting companies it might
make significantly more than I do but my
salary is pretty comparable to the
government employees who are about on my
range when I was offered the position to
be a contractor for NOAA they originally
offered me about $47,000 a year and I
had a great grad school advisor who
always said you know always ask for more
always try and negotiate and so I did
and it got me up to about 57 or so
and since then I did receive one more
raise last year being a contractor your
salary is pretty much set for one to two
years at a time so there isn't an
opportunity really to do performance
based races throughout the year so you
have to renegotiate when your contract
is resigned each year so so it's
something to keep in mind and be sure
you ask on time having a basic
background in biology is a great start
but I learned so much more about
different species that I hadn't worked
with before when I got here so I didn't
know anything about salmon or sturgeon
and those are two very important species
in our area but I was able to learn on
the job once I was here writing and
communication are big keys both in
section 7 and communicating with federal
agencies and on the marine mammal and
sea turtle team communicating with the
public the Coast Guard people who might
be very frantic or panicked about what
they're seeing and knowing how to ask
the right questions to get the right
information out of them so we can make
the appropriate response in a timely
manner being calm under pressure when
you're working on a boat with people in
close proximity you need to be safe with
what you're doing with the people around
you and also when you're working with an
animal your safety is utmost important
that's - a lot of what we do is driven
by our compassion for marine animals we
tend to see them not always in their
best it can be very emotional when you
see an animal that is hurt or entangled
or has died and a lot of times it's it
can be human caused so from our marine
debris or for our fishing gear that has
caused an injury to an animal it's very
emotional and it's something that really
tugs at your heart and makes you want to
work harder and make sure that we are
doing what we can to prevent or to
mitigate these measures in the future