No BLS, AVMA or association series publishes pay for marine or aquatic veterinarians: OEWS counts every veterinarian under one occupation code, and our research found no AZA, AAZV or IAAAM pay series.
The honest answer uses the profession's frame — a $130,100 median for all veterinarians (BLS OEWS, May 2025) — with the nearest labeled employer categories as context: federal ($110,590, same release) and nonprofit ($110,500, 2025 AVMA report, 2023 incomes).
This page shows what the data covers, employer by employer, and why no published marine-vet range exists to quote.
What is the typical marine veterinarian pay range?
Start with the only honest range — the profession-wide one, since the sources used here publish no marine-specific series to quote.
BLS OEWS May 2025 puts the median annual wage for all veterinarians (SOC 29-1131) at $130,100 and the mean at $142,680, with the middle half earning $101,460 to $166,120; the 10th percentile was $73,920 and the 90th $215,700.
The 2025 AVMA report (2023 incomes) shows a median of $133,000 across all veterinary positions (mean $149,856, n=2,217), and VeterinaryHires' own snapshot of October 6, 2026 shows an employer median of $135,000 in advertised annual pay across 717 listings (601 employers) — advertised pay, not earnings.
None of these figures isolates marine practice: BLS's single occupation code has no specialty or setting split, AVMA's income tables have no zoo or wildlife position type, and the VeterinaryHires snapshot is not broken out by practice type.
Where marine vets land inside those ranges is the part the data can only half-answer.
The nearest labeled employer categories — federal government and not-for-profits — both report medians below their own series' profession-wide number: $110,590 for federal veterinarians in the same OEWS release, $110,500 for not-for-profit veterinarians in the same AVMA report.
The employer-by-employer breakdown is below, and the national picture by state and experience is in the veterinarian salary guide.
No published marine veterinarian salary range in the sources we checked
Who employs marine and aquatic veterinarians?
The employer list is short and institutional: public aquariums and marine parks, marine-mammal rescue hospitals and stranding-response networks, aquaculture producers, government science and resource agencies, and universities running aquatic-animal health programs.
Zoological parks with large marine collections sit on the same map.
Two structural facts shape the pay picture.
First, none of these employer types is private clinical practice, so the survey rows that come nearest to the work are the thin ones — federal government, not-for-profits, colleges.
Second, the measured public-sector slice is small: about 900 veterinarians in the entire Federal Executive Branch (OEWS May 2025), out of 83,900 employed veterinarians nationally.
The route into careers like these — a veterinary degree and a state license first, then species experience and zoological training — is the zoo-and-exotics guide's subject: see zoo veterinarians for the route itself.
This page stays on pay.
Aquarium vs rescue vs aquaculture vs government: what the pay data shows
No series in the sources used here pays anyone for being a marine veterinarian, so the comparison runs on employer categories — each figure labeled, and compared only within its own series.
| Employer | Nearest published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Aquarium & marine-park veterinarians | Nearest labeled row: not-for-profit veterinarians, all settings — $110,500 median · $123,508 mean (n=74, 2023 income) | 2025 AVMA report |
| Rescue & stranding organizations | Same not-for-profit row — the nearest labeled context this research found | 2025 AVMA report |
| Aquaculture producers | No aquaculture figure in the sources used here; nearest labeled comparator: production-medicine new grads expected $101,573 (n=82, class of 2024) | AVMA senior survey |
| Federal agencies | $110,590 median · $115,690 mean (about 900 employed) | BLS OEWS May 2025 |
| Federal GS hiring scale | GS-11 $63,795–$82,938 · GS-12 $76,463–$99,404 · GS-13 $90,925–$118,204 (base pay, before locality, effective January 2026) | OPM 2026 base table |
| All veterinarians (the frame) | $130,100 median | BLS OEWS May 2025 |
Read within series: in the BLS release, the federal median ($110,590) sits below the all-veterinarian median ($130,100); in the AVMA report, not-for-profit veterinarians ($110,500, n=74) sit below companion-animal-exclusive associates ($133,000, n=873).
Those within-series gaps are the closest thing to an aquarium-versus-private-practice answer the data supports.
Two cautions.
The not-for-profit row covers every nonprofit-employed veterinarian in its 74-person sample — not aquarium jobs specifically.
And the production-medicine figure is a class-of-2024 expected starting average, not an aquaculture wage; the sources used here include no aquaculture split.
Does residency training or ACZM certification raise marine vet pay?
There is no sourced premium to quote.
AVMA's income tables have no zoo or wildlife position type and report insufficient data even for specialty/exotic practice and uniformed services, and this research found no college-published diplomate pay figure.
What the data shows is the spread a credential sits inside — $73,920 at the 10th percentile against $215,700 at the 90th (OEWS May 2025) — and the cost of the training years: internships averaged $56,705 and residencies $54,847 in 2024 (2025 AVMA report).
For 2024 graduates, those entering full-time private practice started at an average of $131,210, while those entering public practice started at $105,829 — a within-survey picture of what the public-and-institutional direction costs on day one.
The specialty credential in this space is ACZM board certification — the American College of Zoological Medicine, whose recognized specialties now include aquatic animal medicine; what its credential requires is the zoo-and-exotics guide's subject.
The payoff is the part these sources don't publish: this page draws on no primary source with an ACZM premium or an aquarium-versus-private-practice differential — so plan against the stipend line and the employer medians above, not a promised premium.
Why this page won't quote a credential premium
How rare are marine veterinarian jobs?
Every sourced count says the field is small.
Of 83,900 employed veterinarians nationally, about 900 work in the entire Federal Executive Branch.
On October 22, 2026, USAJOBS listed 40 open announcements in the federal Veterinary Medical Science series (0701), most of them Army Medical Command roles — and not one was a USFWS, USGS or NOAA veterinarian position.
That is an absence on one date rather than a permanent one, but it is why no current federal marine-mammal posting range can be cited.
How scarcity shapes pay, observationally: the nearest labeled categories — federal ($110,590), not-for-profit ($110,500), university ($121,590) — each sit below their own series' profession-wide median.
No figure in the sources used here connects this field's rarity to a premium, and this page will not invent one; what the counts establish is that the measured slice is small and institutional.
One practical note: VeterinaryHires lists practice-side veterinary roles.
Browsing current veterinarian jobs shows how hospital-based employers describe pay; the institutional employers in this guide are measured here by the survey rows above, not by job listings.
What related jobs pay in the same range?
For readers weighing marine medicine against adjacent paths, these are the labeled figures available:
- Zoo veterinarians — the same no-published-series situation our research found here; the not-for-profit row is the nearest labeled context.
- Wildlife veterinarians — no dedicated series in these sources either; the government rows are the nearest labeled context.
- University-based aquatic programs — college- and university-employed veterinarians earned a median of $121,590 (mean $145,290, about 1,070 employed; OEWS May 2025).
- Federal agency practice — the $110,590 median above, plus the fully public GS scale.
- Private clinical practice (the comparator) — companion-animal-exclusive associates reported a median 2023 income of $133,000 (mean $146,196, n=873).
The pattern is consistent within each series: the AVMA not-for-profit median ($110,500) sits below the companion-animal-exclusive associate median ($133,000), and the OEWS federal ($110,590) and university ($121,590) medians sit below the OEWS all-veterinarian median ($130,100).
That gap — not a marine-specific number — is the honest answer to what related jobs pay similarly.
What marine and aquatic veterinarians actually do
A marine or aquatic veterinarian is a licensed veterinarian — the same DVM or VMD degree and the same state license as every other veterinarian — whose patients are marine species: fish and invertebrates in aquarium collections, sea turtles and marine mammals in rescue and stranding care, and stock in food-fish production.
The work runs from preventive collection health and quarantine through clinical case management and live-stranding response.
What makes the career unusual is the patient set and the employer set — the license itself is the profession's common one.
What pay data actually exists — and what doesn't
The inventory of what exists is short:
- BLS OEWS — one occupation code (29-1131) for every veterinarian; BLS does not break veterinarian pay out by specialty or setting.
- AVMA — income tables with no zoo or wildlife position type; the 2025 report states insufficient data for specialty/exotic practice and uniformed services. Nearest rows: not-for-profit ($110,500) and all positions ($133,000).
- Associations — our research found no AZA, AAZV or IAAAM series publishing zoo, aquarium or marine-mammal pay.
- VeterinaryHires — advertised pay for practice-side listings ($135,000 employer median, October 6, 2026); an all-listings figure, not broken out by practice type.
- Federal hiring — OPM's GS base tables are public; on October 22, 2026, no NOAA, USFWS or USGS veterinarian announcement was open.
A 2026 edition of the AVMA economic report exists — $475 for non-members — and its tables were not readable for this research.
Figures attributed to it circulate in secondary coverage; none are used here, because everything on this page is labeled to the 2025 report's survey years.
How to read any "marine veterinarian salary" figure
Employers: how aquariums, stranding networks and aquaculture hire
Aquariums and marine parks hire veterinarians onto institutional staffs; where the institution is a nonprofit, its veterinarians fall into AVMA's not-for-profit row — the $110,500 context figure, thin sample included.
Stranding networks and rescue hospitals are response organizations; where they are nonprofits, that same row is the only labeled context our research found.
Aquaculture producers hire as private businesses, and no series in the sources used here tracks the slice — the production-medicine new-grad figure ($101,573 expected, class of 2024) is the nearest labeled comparator, not a fish-farm wage.
Government base pay is public: OPM's 2026 base pay table (effective January 2026, before locality pay) runs GS-11 $63,795–$82,938, GS-12 $76,463–$99,404 and GS-13 $90,925–$118,204, and the grade a given veterinary announcement carries is set by the posting itself.
Universities are the fourth door: OEWS puts the median for college- and university-employed veterinarians at $121,590.
Every pay figure for these employer types on this page is a survey row — BLS, AVMA or OPM — not a job listing; advertised-pay listings, including VeterinaryHires', cover the practice side.
Training and certificates: what they cost before they pay
The route starts at the profession's common gate — a veterinary degree and a state license; there is no national veterinary license, and veterinarians must be licensed in each state where they practice.
The species layer follows: internships and residencies, and for the specialty track, ACZM board certification, for which a training-program route and an experiential route both exist.
The full pathway is the zoo-and-exotics guide's subject; this page adds only what the training years pay.
What they pay is stipend-level: $56,705 for internships and $54,847 for residencies in 2024 (2025 AVMA report), against $131,210 as the average starting figure for 2024 graduates entering full-time private practice.
Then comes the institutional context above — federal $110,590, nonprofit $110,500, university $121,590 — with no credential premium in any source this page draws on.
That is the honest financial picture of the field: a long training sequence into a small set of institutional seats whose published pay sits below the profession-wide median in its own series.
No dollar payoff for the credential appears in the sources used here, so this page won't quote one.
General career information, not legal or financial advice. Licensure is set by each state's veterinary board and credentialing rules by the specialty colleges — confirm current requirements with them.