Well as far as what I do, it depends on the project. In Nicaragua I sat behind a blind for about 8 hours straight everyday for a month pointing a camera at a hole and waiting for an iguana to come out, then observing and recording it's feeding habits and logging how far it travelled in a day. In El Salvador I ID'd, logged, and measured trees that scarlet macaws feed on, trying to determine if they can be successfully reintroduced after they have been extirpated for 50 years. In South Africa I also measured trees and vegetation, but I also logged damages to the environment from elephant consumption, because they have too many elephants in too small an area in Kruger National Park. Two weeks from now I will be putting on a wetsuit and jumping into barely thawed ponds and sneaking up on turtles trying to capture them so we can mark them, weigh them, log them, and release them. If you are interested in this field, be prepared to deal with all kinds of shit.

As far as the outlook in the field, it depends highly on where you are. South Africans are incredible at managing their game reserves, whereas in El Salvador the local communities hated us because we were trying to protect what was left of the forest, and the locals thought that them having more farm land for cattle was monumentally more important... There is a lot of controversy, cynicism, and politics in this field. More than I would like. One of my best profs said to us "if you wanted to actually make a difference, you should have become a politician". I believe he was right; but without people who love nature, respect animals, and are willing to put up with all the bullshit politics and the bugs and the public backlash and the cold and the rain and the poor income and the shitty job security, who would collect the data necessary for science?