Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists

Minimal Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
6.5/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

12% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Communicating with people outside the organization

Very important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
Jobs that also use this strength

Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
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Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
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Show 4 more strengths

Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 467 votes

20% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 12% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists was $72,860 ($35 per hour).

The median annual wage for Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists was 47.2% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists' job openings is expected to rise 1.6% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 16,920 people employed as 'Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 9 thousand people are employed as 'Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists'.

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What people are saying (20)

Leave a comment
no (No chance)
15 May 2026 18:16
How is a bot going to adapt to an unpredictable situation? It can't do it very well, and Zoologists have to work with animals on a regular basis. Animals are unpredictable!
Thomas sangero (No chance)
11 Nov 2024 15:23
Because you need the human touch and skills (like being able to sneak and precice movement)
Clover (Low)
20 Sep 2024 17:42
An animal would barely act right around lets say a zookeeper, a robot would be crushed on the first day.
Paleoman77(I love Pooh) (Low)
13 Jul 2024 23:41
They have to have care for the animals, and the ability to improvise
Alex G.
07 Jul 2024 23:37
This field doesn't require just research, it covers many advanced biological studies that simply can't be replicated by Artificial Intelligence. Field studies could require traveling and sorts, and there's no way computers can do that.
:]
07 Jul 2024 10:31
I don't think AI could ever care for animals because of their different needs and changing patterns.
Lucy (No chance)
03 Jul 2024 20:20
A robot cannot care for an animal in the wild, animals are too unpredictable
Étienne Pinsonneault (Low)
01 Jul 2024 21:30
While humans keep finding better and alternative methods to study animals, AI, which is trained on already existing things only, cannot create new methods, and thus cannot discover new species. However, there is still a chance that it may happen for some parts of the job that are repetitive and the same thing over and over again. And for the physical part of going out into the wild, robots are NOT advanced enough to do all of that movement and to know where to go next.
Anonymous (Uncertain)
07 May 2024 18:25
It's essentially researching, and AI has been learning more and more.
Viktor (Low)
01 Mar 2024 18:08
I voted low because you can not replace taking care of animals or studying animals with AI. Humans can somewhat understand animals and how they act, but I don't think AI think be able to feel empathy or care for animals like humans do.
ez (No chance)
25 Jul 2023 04:31
because the animals deserve love and care not just being left to be care by robots with no feelings for the animals
No comment (No chance)
13 Jul 2022 02:55
This job requires a lot of thinking on your feet which AI is not good at.
Stacy Fordyce
24 May 2021 16:52
in 2020-2021 its very possible but I doubt that some robots are going to take over biology because they need human to create them and give them the info to do that. So really its all the human that study the wild life then give the robots info if you think about it.
Bryson Levake
31 Oct 2023 16:08
I’m seeing this in 2023😂
Unknown (No chance)
28 Feb 2021 16:50
Robots and animals don't mix. Animals are living and wild, robots are tech and man made and we shouldn’t replace them.
Deyah (No chance)
29 Nov 2020 04:40
No way of replacing wildlife rangers with robots, because we all know robots can't nurture animals, their habitats as well as we can do it with more compassion
bill
20 Oct 2020 04:26
robots are very good at collecting data but are really only good at doing one thing it could require many robots just to study in many fields and many robots to study the traits of the millions of organisms but technology is advancing at a quick rate so they might take over in the simpler areas
Jack Carroll (No chance)
28 Aug 2020 15:40
Robots will need maintenance as well as the animals so no
Sam Holiday (Low)
09 Nov 2019 01:44
Robots can't really have a connection with animals.
Alex (No chance)
12 Sep 2019 09:28
A field that requires flexible thought processes, where a project may not have an easily definable goal at the outset or need to have it's aims adjusted on the fly.
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Job description

Study the origins, behavior, diseases, genetics, and life processes of animals and wildlife. May specialize in wildlife research and management. May collect and analyze biological data to determine the environmental effects of present and potential use of land and water habitats.

O*NET-SOC code: 19-1023.00