Education

Threatened species conservation relies on education at every level from primary to postgraduate, as well as in the general community and among academic researchers and industry practitioners in a range of environmental fields. The Carnivore Conservancy fosters conservation awareness through an educational outreach program, an internship program and the inclusion of postgraduate students on our research team.

educational outreach

Educational outreach to the broader community increases the public’s awareness of carnivore conservation issues, including steps that individuals can take themselves to reduce threats to carnivores. (In Tasmania, for example, road kill is a significant cause of native carnivore mortality, and reminding drivers to slow down between dusk and dawn can prevent easily avoided devil or quoll deaths.) Carnivore Conservancy staff have presented seminars on carnivore conservation to a variety of audiences: primary and secondary schools, university departments, community groups, professional organisations, and academics and practitioners at relevant conferences.

If you would like someone from The Carnivore Conservancy to deliver a seminar to your organization, feel free to contact us about the possibility. We spend most of our time in Tasmania, but we do travel interstate and internationally at times, so don’t let geographic distance keep you from inquiring — one of us might be in your area sooner than you think.

We don’t charge a speaker’s fee, but we do encourage organizations for which we present seminars to sponsor some sort of fundraising activity to support our work.

internships

We offer short-term internships to undergraduate students, recent university graduates and others at the beginning of their career who are seeking hands-on experience in field-based conservation research. Several of our past interns have gone on to postgraduate study or paid employment in fields related to wildlife conservation, often inspired by working with us in the field.

Internships are unpaid and can be as short as 10 days or as long as 6 months. Interns provide their own transportation to northwestern Tasmania and pay a modest daily charge for dormitory accommodation and basic meals. 

For more information, please see our Call for Internship Applicants.

postgraduate EDUCATION

Helping to train the next generation of conservation research scientists is an important part of The Carnivore Conservancy’s mission. Through our research partnerships with Deakin University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney, we invite postgraduate students to participate in our research program. The students’ fees and living stipend are provided through university scholarships, but we underwrite the expenses of their fieldwork and some laboratory research. In addition, Carnivore Conservancy staff provide hands-on training in field and laboratory procedures and serve as academic co-supervisors for masters and doctoral students.

For more information, please see our Call for Ph.D. Applicants.

Photo Credits
Tasmanian devil joey: Photo ©  J.-F. DuCroz 2013.
Highway sign: Photo © C. Broadfield 2012.
Spotted-tailed quoll in trap: Photo © C. Hughes 2006.
Healesville Sanctuary devil: Photo © C. Harmsen 2014.
Handling spotted-tailed quoll: Photo © S. Adamczek 2013.