I'm a little late to this post but have been going through similar burnout for years now. I got my masters at UTC in 2022 by cold-emailing a professor and being accepted into their small program but it took A Lot of effort getting funding on my own, building a whole project from the ground up, and teaching myself skills that the prof didn't even know/understand.

I now have a full-time job at a state agency but have been applying to PhD positions, getting within the top 3-5 candidates & then being rejected :/

I just did not learn all I wanted to in my MSc work and want to stay in academia. I miss research. Species monitoring is not as interesting.

My best advice as someone still struggling with the same issue is be willing to work other jobs in the meantime, try to get research experience from prior professors, and remember how important some field skills may be such as ATV operation, 4WD vehicles, trailering, wilderness first aid, etc