| Although it's true that jobs in this field (as in any other "boutique" field of interest) are limited, it's likely that they're on the increase due to an increase in the number of interested persons, more education and understanding about biodiversity conservation and more organisations prepared to allocate money towards herpetological research.
If you were to go through the right channels at Uni including at least an honours level degree, there is no doubt that you'd have a decent chance of making your way into the field. Remember that research and academia isn't the only employment prospect. There are also many jobs in consultancy, technical assistance, education and interpretation, conservation and land management, etc.
The first step is to select the right course. Different Unis will require you to have done different subjects (not all Unis in VIC for example require you to have done VCE chem or maths anymore - but at least the later is recomended). Courses such as "Conservation Biology and Ecology", "Biological Science" or "General Science" are a good start. You can begin to specialise from there and slowly work your way up.
David.  | 
