Nearshore Biologist - Fish and Wildlife Biologist

Nearshore Biologist

Join the WDFW team and apply your expertise in habitat conservation, restoration, and enhancement to help protect and restore Washington's nearshore marine habitats.

In this role, you will serve as a technical lead to develop resources, maintain high-quality spatial data, and communicate complex scientific concepts in accessible ways that help land use practitioners, planners, and staff identify, protect, and enhance critical nearshore habitats.

Among the varied range of responsibilities held within this role, the Nearshore Biologist will:

Incorporate spatial data and identify priority nearshore habitat locations in Washington state into the Priority Habitat and Species (PHS) framework:

• Translate new or existing or nearshore data into a format appropriate to PHS applications.
• Develop technical documentation of methods used to create spatial data and develop user guides for application of nearshore data.
• Develop management recommendations for protecting nearshore habitat priorities in the land use and transportation planning context.
• Coordinate and support GIS staff in the development and integration of nearshore spatial data into the PHS schema and data delivery system.
• Create methodologies and approaches for prioritizing locations for nearshore habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement.

Identify spatial data and prioritize nearshore habitat locations in Washington State:

• Identify appropriate existing spatial data as well as nearshore habitat location and condition.
• Engage and collaborate with scientists and modelers developing, reviewing, or revising nearshore models or technical prioritization efforts relevant to nearshore habitats in Washington.

Provide technical assistance for the development and application of nearshore habitat data in the context of land use planning and land management:

• Provide technical assistance on the applications of PHS nearshore data to internal and external users in the context of local land use planning, transportation planning, growth management, shoreline management.
• Develop and provide training and outreach materials to facilitate understanding and implementation of management recommendations.
• Assimilate expertise on nearshore habitat protection and restoration and communicate best practices.

Represent the agency in a technical capacity on efforts to create new nearshore data products and strategies:

• Participate in research activities including data collection, evaluation, and analysis to identify priority locations for nearshore habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement.
• Participate in working groups developing nearshore data products, priorities, and implementation strategies.
• Produce or co-produce materials and written deliverables (e.g., reports, maps, toolkits, white papers, and academic articles) with a focus on nearshore science.

Maintain spatial data identifying priority nearshore locations in Washington State:

• Review on-going, current nearshore science and modeling to ensure that PHS data meets the best available science standard defined in Washington state code (WAC ).

Working Conditions:

Work setting, including hazards:
Typical office setting - on-site at the Natural Resource Building in Olympia, WA and travel to other regional offices. Office hazards may include prolonged exposure to fluorescent lighting, repetitive computer data entry, extended periods of computer monitor use, and prolonged sitting or standing.

Schedule:

Typically, 8:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M. working 40 hours per week. Partial telework options may be available. While this position offers a hybrid work arrangement, the successful candidate must be available to report to the Olympia, WA headquarters as needed.

Travel Requirements:
Expected travel for meetings and field trips to review project proposals and implementation 5-10% of time.

Customer Interactions:
Interact with various WDFW personnel across programs and throughout the region, city and county planning staff/directors, consultants, other state agency staff and natural resource and conservation non-governmental organization (NGO) partners.

Qualifications:

Closely related qualifying experience may be substituted for the…