Can I hire somebody, maybe a zoologist, to survey and document all wildlife on my property? How much would they cost?
>>4780921How big is your property? Forest? Brush? Pasture? Any streams or ponds? You want all plants and animals? Only Animals? Just vertebrates or invertebrates too?You'd probably find someone if you write to universities around you and pay them ehat they are asking. It will take some time and won't be cheap though. 4-5 digits. Why not get a good camera with both tele- and macro objective, some trail cams and traps and then make photos of everything you see and catch and ID yourself?
>>4780921>a zoologistabout tree fiddy and all the corncobs he can eatno, this is not a joke
>>4780949>How big is your property? Forest? Brush? Pasture? Any streams or ponds? Around 20 acres, it has forest, brush, and a pond.>You want all plants and animals? Only Animals? Just vertebrates or invertebrates too?Now that you mention it, maybe all of those.>You'd probably find someone if you write to universities around you and pay them ehat they are asking. It will take some time and won't be cheap though. 4-5 digits. That's alot..>Why not get a good camera with both tele- and macro objective, some trail cams and traps and then make photos of everything you see and catch and ID yourself?I could but it would take too much work.
>>4781020>That's alot..>too much workThats why>20 acres, diverse habitats>comprehensive survey of all flora and faunaDefinitely 5 figures
>>4780921Just walk around and take photos of things you see, then upload them to iNaturalist with the location and people will ID them for you. If that takes too long or you don’t want to upload shit you can just use it to compare what you see to the species other people have seen in your area and get a rough ID yourself
Yes! I don't know the name and idk how you'd do it for private use but I'm sure you could.When you want to construct alot of things, ex: power plant; one of the things you need to do before being given your permit to begin building is have the government/viable agency commit an investigation and make a report of ALL the ecological effects it'll have.IDR the name of the report but I'd bet you could get one done for your property, especially if you just made an excuse like "considering developing it."Granted it takes like 10 years or some shit normally but I'd imagine it'd be way quicker for you.
>>4780921Don't do this. If they find some rare retard salamander on your property you're suddenly unable to develop your land. In the US they could even possibly buy your house out with government funds.
>>4780921>Can I hire somebodyYes.>How much would they cost?I don't know. If you live near any universities, get in contact with their biology departments and describe what you're interested in and why. You might be able to find a professor that would also be interested, especially if you are willing to learn how to do a bunch of the work. He (or she) might have students/grad students to assign, or maybe willing to volunteer, for the experience or even credits for doing an independent study project.Depending on the university, they may structure their organization under a College of Agriculture, or the Biology Department may be it's own entity. Specifically look for Ecological Studies or the equivalent. You should be able to browse their websites to answer those questions and to try and identify professors likely to be interested.Depending on several factors, you might be able to find someone to do it for free (meaning, the university will pay them to do the work as part of their activities). If you have money to spend and it's important, keep trying and offer to donate it somehow to a specific professor to be in charge (first) before trying to donate it to a department or the general university fund. You're willingness to work as part of the project can be a tipping factor to make it possible under whatever funds are available.Similar strategy, investigate & contact your state's equivalent to their Department of Environmental and Natural Resources. You may help add to a state map of natural resource surveys, especially for conservation efforts.
>>4780921Yeah. The government hires enviromental engineers to study the viability of a certain project and, among other things, they study the local fauna of the region to look for potential dangers that the construction might cause to them and ways to mitigate the harm. But those guys are generalists and arguably focus on soil and shit, not unlike topographers. Your best bet is probably looking for help from your local university. If they are particularly interested in your property, they might do it for free, but it will most likely cost you a tad. I think the last report of this type that I saw in my work was made for, like, $8,000.
>>4781349How true is this really that would have me paranoid
>>4781432Generally won’t buy out property unless they want to build something there. Will give you fairly large fines if you do anything they consider disruption though, like cutting down a rotten tree before it falls on your house- because an endangered bird built a permanent nest in it that it returns to yearly. You receive no compensation for this status unless enough of the property can be classified as a type of habitat that does have funding set aside to encourage owners to maintain it.
