This is an overly simplistic question that will find people strongly aligned on both sides of the issue. I worked both in interpretation and protection during my 32 year career in the National Park Service. So here are my simplified views.

As several of the respondents above referred, I long for the days of the “generalist ranger” who was able to do it all. One minute leading a guided walk and the next dealing with a violation of park regulations. Unfortunately it has been my experience that times and society have changed. The threat of physical violence when dealing with even the simplest park violations have increased exponentially in the past ten years or so. I do not pretend to know all the societal reasons behind any changes in behavior, but evidence of this potential for violence is evident.

Academic studies have shown that National Park Rangers are the most likely to be physically assaulted of any Federal Law Enforcement Agency. During my career sixteen National Park Rangers died in the line of duty. In 1999 National Park Ranger Steve Makuakane-Jarrell was shot and killed while investigating a report of a dog off leash in Hawaii. Just since November 11 a Pennsylvania Wildlife Consevation Officer was shot and killed outside Gettysburg National Military Park, a Tennessee State Park Ranger was shot at while attempting to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation, and Utah State Park Ranger Brody Young was shot during a vehicle stop. These incidents exemplify the inherent dangers of conducting law enforcement duties in park like settings.

To keep our parks, visitors, and employees safe the National Park Service has increased the standards and training for law enforcement commissioned Park Rangers. This perhaps hard to accept concept is driven by the need to meet the mission of the National Park Service to protect and preserve in today’s society. The result is a more law enforcement skilled and experienced workforce within a park.

Interpretation remains an important tool for our National Parks to ensure positive visitor experiences, support for the parks, instilling a respect from the public to help the parks, and educate future generations. The complexities and demands placed on Interpretive Park Rangers have also resulted in the need for more specialization and subject expertise to meet the expectations of a more educated public.

To get back to the original question, it is not appropriate to make a blanket choice to increase Interpretive Ranger or Law Enforcement Park Rangers system wide. There is no doubt that there are insufficient employees in either discipline of rangers to meet the Agency Mission. This issue needs to be looked at on an individual park basis and by using professional staffing and workload analysis determine the positions needs by each park in all work areas. This could also include scientific and maintenance disciplines.

As an example, on the Blue Ridge Parkway a law enforcement work analysis was conducted a number of years ago. The resulting recommendations included that the Park should have a minimum of 50+ law enforcement commissioned Park Rangers to work safely, not necessarily affectively. Today there are still only half that many protection rangers assigned to the park. But the issue in this one park is more complex than that. Due to budget shortfalls the Blue Ridge Parkway has approximately sixty vacant permanent positions of all disciplines that cannot be filled.

Staffing levels across the board in most National Park Service areas makes the preservation and protection of our significant cultural and natural resources, visitors, and employees a challenge we need to step up to meet.

I think an important distinction should be made between formal and informal interpretation. While I was stationed at Yellowstone I gave informal interpretation on the wildlife while working in a public safety capacity. The information I gave visitors was in response to their questions, many of these questions were answered in our park handbooks so should I have ignored the questions or worked during my own time to provide the visitor the best possible experience?? Formal interpretation, while not always, is for the most part given by professionals who are either formally educated on their content or have a great passion for the subject and this was true at Yellowstone and other parks I have worked in over the years.
I agree the recruitment process for new park rangers should be fixed, however we cannot lessen the important work that passionate seasonals and volunteers bring to our parks. To answer the original question we need more of both, and dual capacity rangers could be the best answer.

I fully agree with this

"If I can't bring the naturalists back, I would hire and train first and foremost for visitor contact and interpretation/education, and train secondarily for law enforcement activities. 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 fo the public should be trained as an interpreter/educator first, and as a specialist (law enforcement, resources management, administration, etc.) second.

More uniformed rangers should be accessible to the public, out roaming on foot or horseback, and inter-mingling with the visiting public, answering questions and giving out excellent advice as to how to best experience the park, with an invitation to return for more."

I believe that if more of the so called law enforcement rangers were trained to deal with visitors and education there would be for the most part, less need for law enforcement.

I do see some visitor rule breakers - notably cone walkers at Yellowstone - and hear about others. Considering the number of visitors to the bigger parks its a very small percentage of law/rule breakers with a very large percentage of the budget being used for law enforcement.

What a great question!

Back in the 1960's, park rangers were hired who had college education in the natural and physical sciences or in the cultural sciences. They were given on-the-job training to engage in law enforcement activities.

The corps de elite were the park ranger-naturalists, who also participated in park research activities. On rare occasion, the naturalists would assist the ranger-generals in park protection actions. Neither the ranger-general nor the ranger-naturalist wore side arms nor law-enforcement utility belts.

All this has changed, begining with the aftermath of the Stoneman Meadow Riot of July 4th 1970 in Yosemite Valley, when National Capitol Parks Police were brought into Yosemite to assist with law enforcement demands and train rangers in law enforcement, crowd control, and mounted patrol, followed by the creation of law enforcement as an NPS career-path specialty (in about 1976 or so).

Since the late 1970s, more than 3 decades have passed. The park naturalist series has been terminated, and duties once carried out by academics and professional educators are now carried out by interpreters and volunteers representing a broad range of experiential and educational backgrounds. The role of commercial guide services, concession programs, and more in-depth programs sponsored by park associations has also expanded greatly since the mid-70's.

In most parks, the public contact duties once exclusively carried out by the park ranger-naturalists have been drastically reduced in scope and the niche either left vacant, or filled by others. In general, park research is conducted by visiting university professors and by the park division of resources management.

Meanwhile, law enforcement has become a skill specialty that has only intensified since Sept. 11, 2001. It is not unusual for a park ranger with a speciality in law enforcement to have minimal education in the resource sciences but instead to carry a degree in criminal justice or police sciences. In large parks or parks situated in or near urban centers, the demand for law enforcement rangers remains high, as is evidenced by local park registries of incidents and arrests.

Now you ask, what would I wish for if I had the chance to influence the system? I would like to bring the professional naturalists back and limit the role of volunteers, although I know of some parks where a few volunteers have served the NPS as rangers and have more years of past park and visitor contact experience than most members of the paid permanent staff. Some are retired educators and former seasonal or permanent ranger-naturalists. They simply love working part-time for the park and the public, and they are willing to work without compensation.

If I can't bring the naturalists back, I would hire and train first and foremost for visitor contact and interpretation/education, and train secondarily for law enforcement activities. 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 fo the public should be trained as an interpreter/educator first, and as a specialist (law enforcement, resources management, administration, etc.) second.

More uniformed rangers should be accessible to the public, out roaming on foot or horseback, and inter-mingling with the visiting public, answering questions and giving out excellent advice as to how to best experience the park, with an invitation to return for more.

In my most recent visits, other than fee collectors at the entrance gates, the only NPS'ers I typyically see in uniform are maintenance personnel and on rare occasion, law enforcement rangers in their patrol cars. I may or may not see a uniformed ranger at the Visitor Center, but I also spend very little time inside park VC's. Many VC information desks are staffed with volunteers or park natural history association employees.

In general, most park employees that I meet tend to be employees of the local concessioner. Few of them have formal training to answer more in-depth questions, other than to direct the visitor to the park VC for more informaiton. There are notable exceptions of course, and as mentioned previously, some concessioners even offer professional guide services.

So yes, I would like to see more uniformed park naturalists, historians, and park interpreters/educators out and about, eagerly looking for different and creative ways to enhance the experience of the park visitor. If we cannot increase the ranks of the staff of uniformed naturalists, historians, and interpreter/educators, then at least increase the number of law enforcement rangers who can also function proficiently as highly knowledgeable park ambassadors.

This is such an important discussion - thanks so much for providing a forum!

Although it's been about 20 years since I went to the seasonal academy up in Santa Rosa, then director Bill Orr shared something important with the students that has stuck with me ever since. He said - if I can paraphrase - "Interpretation is the first level of compliance for a law enforcement ranger and the most important tool in your arsenal. It will serve you better than a ticket book, the ability to arrest, or any of the defensive tactics you will learn here."

Personally, I found interpretation to be the most effective tool in dealing with the vast majority of protection issues. Obviously, in situations with the potential for physical harm or property damage, other tools were more appropriate. When I think of people that I respected in the field doing LE, they typically were also very capable interpreters. I truly believe that a good protection ranger has to be by definition a good interpreter - she builds a level of stewardship with each person in every one of her interactions. Not to down play the important role of our community police, but this is what makes a park ranger different from a cop on a beat. In addition to the hundred other things we expect of our rangers, they have to be able to make the resources relevant to the visitor.

I would suggest that we take this even a step further and apply the same idea to anyone who has the potential to interact with visitors. Let's face it - in even well staffed interpretive operations, at best, only ten percent of the visitors every interact with an interpretive ranger. A visitor is much more likely to interact with a generalist at the the gate, or a maintenance worker cleaning up a wayside, or a VRP ranger contacting them while speeding. These are the real individuals that have the opportunity to function as interpreters.

So, I think we are asking ourselves the wrong question. It is not a matter of robbing one division to pay for another. It is a matter of making sure that everyone on staff has a minimum level of proficiency in making interpretive connections with the public. Although I have spent a fair amount of time working as an interpreter, it's not rocket science. We should be asking ourselves whether or not we are willing to train our people to adequately serve as interpreters, regardless of the division they work in. We have very capable folks working in our parks - we just need to make sure they are equipped with the tools they need.

Best,
David

my response to that is try getting a county officer to do an ARPA case. Better yet, have the county do a 19 jj case. While looking at the significance of a LE Ranger, most of my contacts come from the general visitor who's making a simple mistake that needs to be educated about the park service in why we're doing what were doing

Wow, what a stimulating and thoughtful question and posts. This has been one of the most interesting reads I can remember on this website and there was nothing in any of the postings with which I disagreed. The fact that they were all right to one degree or another speaks volumes about the complexity of this whole thing.

I very much agree with David Smith that ALL our personnel should be interpreters first and whatever else second. As a park visitor, I've found myself in awe sometimes when talking with a lowly maintenance worker who was providing excellent interpretation. In fact, when I was one of those old-fashioned "generalists," I made sure we provided at least some interp training for all our maintenance crew.

As for the question of quality -- it doesn't really matter whether one is an interp ranger, LE ranger, maintenance worker, volunteer, concession employee or what have you. It all really boils down to just one thing -- ATTITUDE. If the person really loves the place in which they work, they will be a great whatever they are.

As I've talked with some of those who have taken my place in green and gray uniforms, I have become very concerned however with all the seemingly insane bureaucratic mazes, hoops, and inanities any potential NPS employee now faces in trying to join the team. Good heavens -- it's a wonder anyone has the drive and dedication to keep trying to find a job in one of our parks. But maybe that helps separate the real winners from all the rest.

I've been a protection/public safety ranger with a local agency in CA for nearly 16 years and my wife been on the seasonal circuit with Ca State Park and NPS for they past 4 years.  

Both type of rangers are equally important and in the end have the same goals of protecting the park resources and park visitors, they just have different, training, tools and techniques for doing it.

Protection rangers are needed because they are the most effective way to provide law enforcement and other public safety functions (EMS, SAR and Fire) in parks.  Traditional law enforcement officers usually have little understanding of or desire to enforce resource protection laws or park regulations.  The resources in parks "protected" by traditional law enforcement are not as well protected resources in parks that have law enforcement rangers.  A long time CA State Park ranger told me once that you can't make a cop into a good ranger, but you can make a ranger into a good cop.

Let's not forget law enforcement is nothing new for rangers.  It's been part of the duties for rangers with my agency since they hired it's first rangers in 1917.  In 1926 Horace Albright who at the time was Superintendent of Yellowstone stated: 
"Qualifications of a Ranger... The ranger is primarily a policeman... The ranger comes more closely in contact with the visiting public than any other park officer, and he is the representative of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Park Service and the Superintendent of the Park in dealing with the public. Naturally, therefore, the ranger must have a pleasing personality; he must be tactful, diplomatic, and courteous; he must be patient... The ranger is charged with the protection of the natural features of the Park, especially the forests..."

Albright also stated: "Duties of A Ranger: The ranger force is the park police force, and is on duty night and day in the protection of the park. Protection work primarily relates to the care of the forests, the fish and game, the geyser and hot spring formations and the campgrounds. Of equal importance is the detection of violations of the speed rules. The ranger force is the information-supplying organization. The issuance of publications, answering of questions, lecturing, and guiding are all accomplished by rangers."

I agree with the David Smith's post, especially  "Interpretation is the first level of compliance for a law enforcement ranger and the most important tool in your arsenal. It will serve you better than a ticket book, the ability to arrest, or any of the defensive tactics you will learn here."
The law enforcement training, skills and powers come into play when visitors know the rules and choose not to follow them or when dealing with traditional criminal activity that occurs in all parks.  I also was one of Bill Orr's students at Santa Rosa.  I remember another instructor there told us "even criminals take vacations." 

In my job I've been lucky, I regularly provide informal interp and do also get a chance to present formal interp programs too.  Interp rangers play a vital role by providing full time interpretation, information and education to park visitors to help them understand the park's resources better and hopefully inspire them to want to preserve and protect the parks. 

Each park needs it's own specific mixture of protection and interp rangers.  Volunteers can be a great supplement in interp services, but they are not a replacement for interp rangers.  Seasonal rangers in both classes of rangers and are vital to many parks operations.  The NPS should       fix the hiring and recruitment process both Seasonal and Permanent rangers, both LE and interp, the way it's done now leaves much to be desired and produces a high level of disillusionment for those wanting to transition from seasonal to permanent rangers.