IMPORTANT:  This Advertiser has requested that applicants MUST be National Residents / Valid Work Permit-holders.  Other applicants need not apply.

 

Project Officer (Community Liaison and TNR), Wildcat Action

1st March 2015

Title: Project Officer (Community Liaison and TNR), Wildcat Action

Status: full time, fixed term to 31 March 2020

Salary: £22,739 - £26,726

Location: tbc

Closing date: Midnight on Monday 2 February 2015

Wildcat Action is a five year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which will deliver some of the key actions within the Scottish Wildcat Conservation Action Plan (SWCAP).

Scottish Natural Heritage is the lead partner in the project, working alongside the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Sciences (University of Edinburgh), the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, the National Trust for Scotland, National Museums Scotland, the Cairngorms National Park Authority and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Other financial contributions to the project are being made by Highland Council, Forestry Commission Scotland, MSD Animal Health and Chester Zoo.

Wildcat Action will work in six priority wildcat areas to halt the decline of Scottish wildcats by reducing the threats that are currently limiting the population – hybridisation and disease transmission from feral and domestic cats, accidental persecution and impacts from development.

Each Project Officer will act as the point of contact for the project for two of the priority wildcat areas and will be based in an appropriate geographic location, hosted by one of the Wildcat Action partner organisations.

Managed by the Wildcat Action Project Manager, they will work as a team to deliver the project throughout its five year lifespan. Each will therefore be involved in all strands of the project (i.e. land management, TNR, communications, monitoring) but each will have a specialist subject area in which they have previous experience and will have greater involvement in and responsibility for. 

The six priority areas will be paired as follows with each pair covered by one Project Officer – North Strathspey and Angus Glens (based in Kincraig), Strathavon and Strathbogie (based in Elgin) and Strathpeffer and Morvern (jointly based in Inverness and Lochaline).

At the time of advertising the posts, we wish to keep the pairing of post locations and thematic responsibilities flexible, to be finalised when successful candidates are appointed. A job share may be considered for the more geographically distant locations (in particular the post covering Strathpeffer and Morvern).

The Community Liason and TNR Project Officer will be responsible for working with the Project Manager and other Project Officers to ensure effective communication with local communities, to increase local awareness of wildcat conservation issues, recruit and coordinate volunteers to the project and ensure local communities are kept informed of project activities, and enabled to become involved and contribute.

They will also organise project events and help to access existing communication networks to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. They will also coordinate the TNR programme across the six priority areas, working with the other Project Officers, and with the support of the relevant partner organisations.

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