No survey we could source publishes a wildlife veterinarian salary on its own — BLS keeps one occupation code for all veterinarians, and its May 2025 median for the occupation is $130,100.
The closest labeled anchors are sector rows for all veterinarians: $115,210 in BLS's government row, $110,590 in the federal executive branch, $115,490 in state government and $131,760 in social advocacy organizations.
Read every number on this page as a labeled proxy, not a wildlife quote.
What is the typical wildlife veterinarian pay range?
No pay series we could source covers wildlife veterinarians specifically.
BLS's OEWS program keeps one occupation code — 29-1131, Veterinarians — for every kind of vet, so the federal data has no wildlife, zoo or conservation breakout, and we found no zoo or wildlife veterinary association that publishes a salary series either.
What exists instead is the all-veterinarian distribution.
The median annual wage for veterinarians was $130,100 in May 2025, with the 25th percentile at $101,460, the 75th at $166,120, the bottom 10% under $73,920 and the top 10% above $215,700; the mean was $142,680.
Two more anchors, each labeled for what it actually covers.
The 2025 AVMA economic report put median professional income across all veterinary positions at $133,000 (income reported for 2023; mean $149,856).
And on VeterinaryHires (snapshot of October 6, 2026), the median employer-posted salary across 717 veterinarian listings stating annual pay — 601 employers — was $135,000, with the middle half at $125,000–$145,000.
That figure is advertised pay, not earnings, and not wildlife pay.
Every figure on this page is a proxy
Federal and state agency pay: the GS-grade frame
The labeled numbers live with the agencies.
In the May 2025 federal data, veterinarians in the federal executive branch earned a median of $110,590 (mean $115,690); veterinarians in state government, excluding schools and hospitals, earned a median of $115,490.
The broader BLS government row — which excludes state and local education and hospitals — sits at $115,210, against $129,990 for veterinary services.
AVMA's member survey reads differently and shows why the series label matters: veterinarians in federal government reported a median income of $142,721 (28 respondents) and state and local government $105,000 (21 respondents), self-reported for 2023.
Both samples are small, so treat them as texture, not precision.
Neither BLS nor AVMA carries a pay row for state wildlife agencies or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in any series this page sources, so no wildlife-specific range is printed here.
What you can frame is the federal scale itself — agencies set base pay on the General Schedule, which for 2026 (effective January 2026, before locality pay) runs:
| Grade | 2026 base salary range (before locality pay) |
|---|---|
| GS-11 | $63,795–$82,938 |
| GS-12 | $76,463–$99,404 |
| GS-13 | $90,925–$118,204 |
| GS-14 | $107,446–$139,684 |
| GS-15 | $126,384–$164,301 |
This is the general federal base-pay table, not a wildlife-veterinarian pay range.
Locality pay comes on top of base — read each announcement for the grade and range it actually sets.
Rehab centers and NGOs: the nonprofit anchor
Wildlife rehabilitation centers and conservation nonprofits are a real employment lane — the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians counts more than 200 agencies, institutions and organizations in its orbit, a self-reported figure — but we found no rehab-specific pay series.
Two labeled anchors exist, and they point different ways.
The AVMA's not-for-profit bucket: veterinarians across all not-for-profit organizations reported a median 2023 income of $110,500 (mean $123,508, 74 respondents).
BLS's social advocacy organizations row: veterinarians in that industry earned a median of $131,760 in May 2025.
Both mix wildlife-adjacent employers with every other veterinary job in the sector, so treat them as sector context, not a rehab quote.
Budget reality is documented one lane over, not in this one.
BLS's caution about the neighboring wildlife-science occupations — the zoologists and wildlife biologists — is that demand may be limited by budgetary constraints because much of the funding is governmental.
That caution does not cover veterinary jobs, and this page cannot measure how tightly it binds any given rehab or NGO employer — one more reason to ask how a position is funded before weighing it against a clinical offer.
Conservation and forensic roles
Conservation-side and forensic wildlife work — disease investigation, mortality events, wildlife health science — has no BLS breakout of its own (the one 29-1131 code covers every veterinarian), so no separate range exists.
The clearest sourced example is the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, whose stated mission is to advance wildlife health science for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment.
Know the neighbor occupation, too.
Zoologists and wildlife biologists — a different occupation from veterinarian — earned a median of $76,780 in May 2025, with the bottom 10% under $49,100 and the top 10% above $126,440.
A posting that reads "wildlife biologist" is a different job with its own scale; the DVM anchors on this page do not describe it.
What raises wildlife veterinarian pay
Two levers have sourced anchors.
Sector is the most measurable: the same May 2025 medians that put government veterinarians at $115,210 put veterinary services at $129,990 and social advocacy organizations at $131,760, so the sector gap is measurable before anything else about the job changes.
Grade is the second.
The 2026 General Schedule base table tops GS-13 at $118,204, GS-14 at $139,684 (full range $107,446–$139,684) and GS-15 at $164,301 (full range $126,384–$164,301), all before locality pay — so on the federal side, progression up the grade ladder is where base pay grows.
Credential is a career step, not a sourced pay lever.
AVMA counted 371 active ACZM diplomates as of December 31, 2025, but no pay series we sourced follows the credential, so this page makes no claim that it raises pay; the ACZM route is covered below.
Where wildlife veterinarian jobs are posted
No dedicated wildlife-veterinarian job board appears in our sourcing; the channels below are the ones the sourced facts name.
On USAJOBS, the federal government's job board, 40 announcements were open in the Veterinary Medical Science series (0701) on October 22, 2026, most of them Army Medical Command roles — and on our check that day, not one was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or USGS wildlife-veterinarian posting.
That absence is a one-date snapshot, not a standing vacancy count.
APHIS, for its part, is actively hiring veterinary medical officers in Animal Care (Animal Welfare Act and Horse Protection Act enforcement) and Veterinary Services, with open locations listed by state — agency work that is regulatory rather than wildlife-specific, and which the public health careers guide covers in depth.
The professional route runs through the associations: ACZM's career pathway page points students to AAZV, IAAAM and ARAV externship listings, and post-DVM candidates to ACZM-compliant training programs, AAZV, AAWV, IAAAM, ARAV and the VIRMP.
AAWV also funds free-ranging wildlife veterinary externship grants for students.
And when you want the wider market for comparison, browse veterinarian jobs as they are actually posted.
What wildlife veterinarians actually do
Day to day, the job runs on two registers the sourced facts do cover: veterinary care of wild animals, and population-level wildlife health science — the register the USGS National Wildlife Health Center works in, with a stated mission to advance wildlife health science for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment.
BLS describes veterinary work generally as emotionally stressful, and physically demanding on farms, in slaughterhouses or with wildlife.
This page stays on pay.
The career-overview side — what the combined field looks like, the exotics door in general practice, and how zoo veterinarians fit the same small world — is its own guide.
Who employs wildlife veterinarians
AVMA's census does not publish a wildlife share at all: captive wildlife and wildlife medicine are folded into "other veterinary employment" — 7.9% of veterinarians, grouped together with lab animal, exotics, not-for-profit and other roles — so there is no headcount to quote.
The employer map the sourced facts do support looks like this: federal science and regulatory agencies (the USGS National Wildlife Health Center on the science side; APHIS veterinary medical officers on the regulatory side); state government agencies; and the zoo, aquarium, rehab and conservation-organization world that AAWV's counts of more than 200 agencies, institutions and organizations reflect.
The government tilt is real even one occupation over: 66% of zoologists and wildlife biologists worked in government in 2025 (BLS's category excludes state and local education and hospitals).
No wildlife-veterinarian split is published to compare — which is exactly why the scarcity section below ends where it does.
Training beyond the DVM: the ACZM route
The board that covers this space is the American College of Zoological Medicine.
ACZM now recognizes four specialties — aquatic animal medicine, zoo animal medicine, wildlife population health and zoological companion animal medicine — and wildlife population health is the one that maps most directly to this career.
AVMA counted 371 active ACZM diplomates as of December 31, 2025.
Eligibility is specific: first authorship of at least three refereed publications relevant to zoological medicine (no more than two case reports), plus either three years in an ACZM-compliant training program or six years of experience on the experiential route with two ACZM diplomate mentors.
Applications must be submitted electronically by March 31 each year.
The credentialing breakdown — routes, maintenance, the college's own wording — is on the zoological medicine board page.
Earlier in the path, AAWV's externship grants and ACZM's own pathway listings are the entry points those sources name.
Credential rules change — verify with ACZM
Pay and job scarcity: how the trade-off works
The honest summary: a small field with no published headcount, a budgetary constraint BLS documents in the neighboring science occupations, and no wildlife pay series — only labeled sector proxies.
AVMA publishes no wildlife headcount to size the field, and BLS's warning about the neighboring science occupations — demand limited by budgetary constraints because much of the funding is governmental — is the closest sourced statement of the constraint this career runs against.
The comparison the sourced data supports is between sectors in the same May 2025 release: government-veterinarian medians of $115,490 (state government, excluding schools and hospitals) and $110,590 (federal executive branch), $131,760 in social advocacy organizations, and the $130,100 all-veterinarian median.
None of them is a wildlife figure, so weigh the sector you would actually join against the occupation-wide median rather than reading any gap as a wildlife premium or penalty.
For the full occupation picture — percentiles, state patterns and what drives them — start with the veterinarian salary guide.