Also called: Wildlife Sound Archivist, Animal Sound Library Curator
Curates huge libraries of recorded animal sounds, from bird songs to frog calls, so scientists, apps and filmmakers can use them.
Listens to a field recording of a rainforest at dawn, labels each bird song with its species, and fixes the location data. You help a scientist find decades of owl recordings, answer a film studio's request for wolf howls, and train volunteers on cataloging. Your archive also trains bird-ID apps.
Estimate.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in biology or ecology; audio and database skills matter a lot.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Biology, Ecology, Audio Engineering.
Growing about average. Small field at a few big libraries.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. AI identifies many species automatically, so archivists focus on checking quality and managing data.
Classes: Biology, Music or audio production, Computer science.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.