20070313 Are You a REAL Ranger?

20070313 Are You a REAL Ranger?

Park rangers come in all sizes, shapes, and ages. In small National Park Service units, each park service employee may wear many hats. A single person may perform law enforcement, interpretive, maintenance, research and administrative functions. With an increase in the size of the staff comes an increase in specialization.

In a park like Everglades one finds law enforcement officers primarily catching bad guys and providing emergency medical services. Interpreters like me share the wonders of the Everglades with visitors, as well as issuing wilderness permits and directing visitors to the restrooms. Visitor Use Assistants, a demeaning name given to those operating campgrounds and entrance stations, collect fees as a big part of their jobs. Law enforcement, interpreters, and VUAs all wear a Class A uniform, which includes a badge and, if appropriate for the circumstance, a flat hat. Maintenance workers, well, you know what they do. They wear Class B uniforms which lack the badge and the privilege of wearing the flat hat. Researchers and administrators also have self-explainable jobs and most wear no uniform at all. Park volunteers may be interpreters, maintenance workers, clerks, campground hosts, and even artists. They usually wear khaki. Cooperating association employees, often clad in khaki pants and polo shirts, mostly staff bookstores but may be interpreters as well. The question is, who are the real rangers?

In the eyes of the public, from my experience, just about anyone wearing a uniform may be seen as a ranger. Crimes may be reported to interpreters, a maintenance worker may be asked to identify a bird, and a law enforcement officer may hear about a litter problem. Volunteers and cooperating association employees hear it all.

From the point of view of park management, the only real rangers are the law enforcement rangers. For a bird ID a visitor may be told to find an interpreter. If a toilet overflows, the park dispatcher radios for "any Flamingo maintenance." For a law enforcement issue or a medical emergency the call changes to "any Flamingo ranger." Park Service culture understands that to mean a law enforcement ranger.

Congress mandates that the National Park Service conserve the resources, whatever they may be, in each national park. The Service also must provide for the public enjoyment of those resources to the extent that the public does no irreparable harm. This is the dual mission of the National Park Service. In my opinion anyone working in a national park, regardless of uniform or official title, who upholds that mission is a real ranger.