I went to Manassas National Battlefield about three weeks ago. Ranger Gregory Wolf relived the battle on Henry Hill for our small group huddled on that blustery cold knob. Afterwards I complemented him on his storytelling skills. His story and voice were as pleasant and moving as Shelton Johnson, the Yosemite ranger featured on the Ken Burns documentary.

So what if Mr. Wolf also wears a sidearm? Dual-role jobs are not uncommon in the workworld. Interpreter and peacekeeper make a natural combination. Putting great storytellers into the crowds, or even one-on-one, is a far better deterrent than visible firearms. People naturally gravitate to folks like that, enjoy the park experience, and leave richer and better informed.

I would guess that the need for good interpreters is much higher on any given day than a law enforcer. Legal incidents are infrequent. But interactive storytellers are always in demand.

Larry

Maybe at Manassas, legal incidents are infrequent. The rest of the parks need more LE rangers. Gangs at Lake Mead, drinking and drugs at beach parks, drug smugglers at our border parks. We need to protect our parks first. Let's pose this question: Should Organ Pipe NM have more interpretive rangers or LE rangers?

Some parks could have the two ranger roles combined, but resource protection and law enforcement [traffic violations, domestic disputes] need full time attention in larger parks. It's really a individual park issue, not a one size fits all matter. Not to mention, there are many units where no law enforcement on staff.

While I know that the general public can be fooled into thinking [though not on purpose, mind you!] that volunteers are rangers, and not that volunteers do a bad job at all--they contribute millions of hours to the NPS, literally holding it up with their service--the majority of the public will either meet volunteers or seasonal rangers. While the seasonals don't do a horrible job either, there isn't much park 'loyality' when a system runs as such. The way the system works, there are no 'experts' at any park aside from the full-time and return seasonals--you don't to have a degree in the subject nor even be familiar with it on a basic level. While some will take the time to learn all they can, there are some [and I'm hoping I've just met my fair share] that only cover their bases, so to speak. I recently received a confession that a ranger previously so lucky to work in Yellowstone had just 'brushed up' on bears by reading for an hour or so and then presented a program. Said ranger was chuckling about how his audience had commended him on sounding like an expert and that 'environmental studies' wasn't his thing.

My point here is that either you convert a portion of the seasonal workforce into full-time or convert them all into volunteers. Operating with an overpaid seasonal 'gypsy' front-line staff doesn't provide the best for the visitors or the park, not to mention it's a poor use of money, having to retrain every year. With the addage saying that it takes 10 years on average to become full-time nowadays, it's not the best recruitment method either.

Do you find yourself looking for an "LE" ranger when you're visiting a park, or wish you could find a park interpreter to help you better understand your surroundings?

As a general rule, the only time someone goes looking for an LE ranger is when they have a problem involving a crime (or something that involves potentially criminal behavior). In some parks, crime is a much more prevalent problem than in others, so I tend to agree with the anonymous commenter who said the question needs to be addressed on a park-by-park problem. In Yellowstone (the park with which I am most familiar), I think the balance of LE rangers is about where it needs to be. As with most other parks, the interpretive ranger corps has been drastically reduced over the past 30-40 years.

In my opinion, the base experience a visitor has in a park should include access to NPS personnel who can speak intelligently about the park and "interpret" the park for him/her (in addition to any concessioner tour guides, who tend to be itinerant, even within a given season). Printed material, videos that are shown in one or two places (typically the VCs), and whatnot often lack context and aren't sufficient to address the unique questions that people come up with while wandering through the geyser basins, for example. Could an LE ranger do that? Sure. But I think it isn't realistic to expect someone in place primarily for LE activities to be well-versed in every aspect of the park, including not only patrol/police work, but SAR, fire suppression, etc. (at least, parks as large and diverse as Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.).

To pkrnger's point, by the way, Yellowstone has pretty much always had separate cadres of protective rangers and interpretive rangers; it wasn't something that has come about recently (though I do agree that law enforcement seems to have become more robust and visible over the past few years, perhaps as a result of 9/11).

And while you're mulling that question, do you think interpretive rangers should be full-time National Park Service employees, or volunteers?

Personally, I believe the majority of them should be professionals. I don't think it is realistic to expect there to be volunteers available who've invested the time and effort to obtain the educational background to speak intelligently about different aspects of the park. Again, that may be more of an issue for the larger, more diverse parks than the smaller ones. These could (and should, where possible) by supplemented by suitable volunteers, and the professional rangers should supervise the volunteers. I don't think it is fair to ask/require someone to volunteer their time in a place as isolated as Yellowstone and not provide them with housing and a meal allowance at a minimum, for example. It would be tough to exist as a volunteer in the Yellowstone area unless you were from the area and/or had a local support system.

While only a small number of visitors to any given park are likely to encounter an LE ranger (in their professional capacity), a much greater number will/should encounter interpretive rangers, and therefore they are the image of the NPS that the visitor is going to leave with. Regardless of whether they're professionals or volunteers, they need to be trained and well-versed in the subject matter, and that's what matters the most, IMO.

Quoting pkrnger, "Come to think of it, I believe that everyone in uniform who works for the NPS and who potentially comes into contact with a member [of] the public should be trained as an interpreter/educator first, and as a specialist (law enforcement, resources management, administration, etc.) second. "

I think I agree with that statement; that seems to be the best way to deal with it. Every visitor who sees someone in the green and gray uniform just assumes that person is a "ranger" and can speak intelligently about anything they're asked related to the park. And most questions they're going to be asked have little to do with subjects like law enforcement, administration, etc. Every LE ranger gets questions about the wildlife in the park, the geothermal processes, and so forth. They need to be able to speak intelligently on those subjects.

In reality, law enforcement issues could be dealt with by state/local officials in most cases (deputized to enforce laws on federal property), so you would always have access to professional law enforcement services (esp. the specialized services like crime scene processing, investigation, etc.). You don't necessarily need professional LE rangers in many places.

If you don't have professional/competent interpretive staff, however, there's just going to be a void there that can't be filled by the state or locals. And my experience with concessioner tour guides is that the majority of them lack suitable credentials and or the requisite knowledge and experience to talk in depth about most aspects of the park (Yellowstone, in this case). Not that they don't try, but most of them are young folks who're in school (often majoring in subjects that have little to do with interpretation or any of the sciences that would be beneficial for someone in such a role), and are in Yellowstone themselves for the first time. They just don't have the background to make it "work."

So, in summary, my opinion is that we need more interpretive rangers, and they should be paid professionals, supplemented by volunteers where possible, necessary, or desired.

Given pkrnger's great answer, I must expose Pogo. I visited Yosemite this summer. I was fortunate to be there the week after their two busiest weeks ever. Every ranger I talked to expressed the need for a little breather. I'm not sure why my week was lighter. The weather was perfect. Nontheless, I think the record crowds were due in part to the Ken Burns documentary. Lots of people wanted to meet Shelton Johnson (including me!). I would have been satisfied with a ghostly visit from John Muir. Indeed, the naturalists and storytellers (those who are truly knowledgeable, not having read up a mere hour before) are what make the park experience for me. My perspective is biased of course. I love the full park experience. I go off the beaten path. I want to know the history, the stories, the little-known facts. I did not come to Yosemite to join the other 95% who never leave the Valley. Perhaps they are the 95% who require the greater attention of the law enforcement.

My point is that with America's Best Idea, people have a pre-conceived notion of what their park experience will be. Maybe that's just my romantic side and it is the side I enjoy experiencing when I visit the parks. I still think cross-training is best.

Great question, Kurt. I'm torn on this one myself.

Here at Capitol Reef, LEs are somewhat less "necessary" in protecting the public (sad thought, no, that visitors to national parks must be protected??). Since we're so remote, we don't seem to have the abundance of drug runners (well...lately in the surrounding mountains there have been!), desperate and scary situations (Organ Pipe), and random shooters (the recent incident involving Utah State Parks Officer Brody Young near Moab) that some other NPS units unfortunately experience. However, the LEs here are always on patrol and deal with basic things like traffic violators, SARs, all that good and necessary stuff. They also can be sent/volunteer to go to help out in other areas, say a border NPS unit that has law enforcement issues, or an NPS unit located in an area that has extreme local poverty, violence, and and almost no law enforcement, all of which adversely affects visitors and locals alike. According to my LE friends here, when you look at the big picture, there are definitely some NPS units that need a heck of lot more LE support in the form of active officers.

So...could there be more LEs in park units in general? Yes, I think so.

Yet interps do a very vital job as well. Are they less well-trained than in years past? According to above posts, yes. (I personally don't really know, but it seems like it's probably true.) Should they all be volunteer? Let me tell you, the way things are going now, they might well end up being so. The NPS is in a financial hole in many ways. And with the current administration freezing ALL federal wages for the next two years, my many friends already in the NPS are anticipating feeling the pinch, not to mention how that affects future interp hires. People with advanced degrees are less likely to look at positions that have frozen wages for the next 24 months, not to mention that just trying to get into the NPS can be a comedy of paperwork, bureaucracy, and frustrated waiting. (This, I speak of from personal experience.) Also, who's around to train interps anyway? There might be one overburdened chief of interp and a bunch of seasonal newbies...and not enough time/money to get them all really trained up.

So...do we need more interpretive park staff? I'm not entirely certain "more" is the operative word. Possibly better-trained interps with more incentive to stay in a particular unit longer. When you're a seasonal, sometimes that incentive is quite low.

Food for thought as usual. Thanks for posing the question.

In an alternate reality where the NPS gets a healthy budget, why not get more of both? Then we'd have interp. rangers able to rove and meet the public as well as more than one l.e. ranger to cover 100,000+ acres alone.
In this reality, maybe we shoud be happy with what we got. In all honesty, the budget is about to go down the toilet. Volunteers can be great if you can get them and train them. Yes, seasonals vary in training, education and enthusiasm, but a lot of them are good people (in a no-so-great situation).

I'm not interested in law enforcement rangers. And frankly, I never understood, why the NPS has police authority at all. Yes, the parks are federal land, but does that mean it needs federal police? On BLM land the primary police is that of the county.

Abandon all LE functions with the NPS, shift it to the counties. And make the NPS an organization that deals in science, environmental protection and education.