I work for the federal government, and its personnel office calls all veterinarians by the same title: "Veterinary Medical Officer". I find that to be both stuffy and non-descriptive, so I use the working title, "Wildlife Veterinarian" on everything I do. I am employed by the US Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center - Biological Science Office in Anchorage, Alaska. Why does USGS have a wildlife veterinarian? Good question. We were all part of US Fish and Wildlife Service until a few years ago, when the Secretary of the Interior somewhat arbitrarily created a new agency and pulled all the researchers out of existing agencies like US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc. and put them into the new agency. Congress hated it and tried to delete the entire group. A compromise was struck and the new agency was eliminated and all its employees were stuffed into the US Geological Survey, for no particularly good reason that I can think of.

There's a long answer to this on my webpages' FAQ.

At first, I was going to answer that I don't have a typical work day. But, upon further thought, I think I have two general types of days. From April to fall is "field season". As you can imagine, things can get pretty hectic here as we don't have a long summer in which to work. My "typical" day in the field consists of living in a remote field camp, or on a charted vessel in Prince William Sound, or in the oil field facilities at Prudhoe Bay. What I do the most of is to surgically implant radio or satellite transmitters into animals which, for a variety of reasons, cannot wear externally mounted transmitters. I support our biologists in their studies. So, I typically go to the field with a biologist, assist them with capturing the animal of interest, and do surgery in the field to implant the transmitter. The animals range from mammals like polar bears and walruses, to birds like surf scoters, spectacled eiders, and harlequin ducks.

The best part of my job is the constant challenge of doing intricate surgeries in remote locations, and working with some amazing animals that live in amazing locations. I've tracked polar bears from a helicopter flying over the sea ice off the north coast of Alaska. I've crawled across beaches to get within a few yards of a herd of 2000 bull walruses. I've herded harlequin ducks from a sea kayak to move them into traps set on the shores of Prince William Sound. I've hiked across tundra were thousands of waterfowl and cranes were nesting. Get the idea? The part that I like least is that it has been a long, long time since working for the government has been a pleasant experience. Yet, if one is to work with free-ranging wildlife, being a employee of government at some level is probably inevitable.

Again, I cover some of this in the FAQ section of my webpages. There are four main pieces of advice that I would give to anybody seeking happiness in a profession. First, never give up your dream, but be prepared to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. Sacrifice the present for the future. Second, in order to gain one of the few, highly desired, positions in any profession, you must out-qualify the competition. More degrees, board certification, experience. Sacrifice the present for the future. Third, give your loyalty to your profession, not to your employer. Your employer might not like it initially, but you will serve him better in the long run. Sacrifice the present for the future. Finally, recognize and accept that small changes in life change only small things. If you are really unhappy with your life, then you need to make a big change to expect a big result. Sacrifice the present for the future. (Are you seeing the trend here?).

(This could also be part of the answer for Question 5). The future in zoo and wildlife medicine is in professional preparation. If you want to be a zoo or a wildlife veterinarian, my advice is to finish veterinary school, do an internship at a busy clinic for a year, do a three-year residency in zoo or free-ranging wildlife veterinary medicine (there are a few of these and more are coming) and get a Master's or, better, a Ph.D. during the residency. Finally, pass boards and obtain board certification in Zoological Medicine, Avian Practice, Pathology, or something. Then, get as much experience as possible. This sounds like a long haul, and it is, but the days when someone could graduate from veterinary school and walk into a zoo veterinarian's job are probably over.

For the working zoo or wildlife veterinarian, future challenges will come from changes in technology and changes in the function of government. Very little can be done any more by sitting on a rock with a pair of binoculars, or by darting an animal down and measuring it. We will need to learn and to use highly sophisticated techniques in physiology, surgery, behavior, reproduction, etc. We will have to become better scientists as well as better veterinarians. With the current trend in downsizing and reductions in funding of government wildlife research, I am predicting that zoos and aquariums will evolve to have a greater (but perhaps not dominant) role in wildlife research. In less than 30 years zoos and aquariums changed from jails to ecosystem models. Their work in the field changed from collecting trips to field research. The scale of work by zoos and aquariums will not be sufficient to replace the work presently being done by government researchers, but that simply means that a lot less work will be done overall, whether the zoos step in or not.