Robinson 1

Charlotte Robinson
Mrs. DeBock
English IV
27 September 2016
Essential Question: How do park rangers impact their designated territoried based on the
everyday responsibilities they take part in?
Working Thesis: Park rangers positively impact their designated territories by taking part in
everyday responsibilities.
Refined Thesis: Park rangers positively impact their designated territories by taking part in
everyday responsibilities such as completing park grounds inspections, greeting visitors,
enforcing park regulations, and assisting with emergency situations.
Annotated Bibliography
Buhay, Corey, et al. "Rangers We Love." Backpacker 2015: 56. Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Oct.
2016.
The periodical cited above is written by Corey Buhay who takes the opportunity to
congratulate the park rangers of the various national park and forest services. The author lists
situations in where such rangers have been extremely helpful in the general maintenance of their
respective parks and then goes on to enumerate ten specific officials who have gained a notable
mention in her article including Laura Lynn DelRoss (Death Valley), Mike Gauthier (Yosemite),
and Merrill McCauley (Channel Islands). In addition to providing quotes from parks visitor aided
by each of these rangers, Buhay adds areas of interest that the officials are skilled in such as
where to catch the best fish or storytelling. She also includes the rangers favorite places to be
inside their respective parks. This article assists in proving why rangers average duties serve to

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benefit their parks because it provides positive and specific examples of public relations with
visitors.

Graf, Christine. "A Very Dangerous Job." Faces 32.8 (2016): 34. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27
Oct. 2016.
This article, written by author Christine Graf, depicts the dangerous but necessary duties
of the rangers that protect and manage Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. In her writing, Graf states that the job of an African forest ranger is just as lifethreatening as the job of someone in the armed forces for this country. Since the 1994 genocide
in neighboring Rwanda, roving militias have been warring inside the park. According to chief
ranger Emmanuel de Merode, there have been several attacks on their station and over 140
officials have been killed in the past twenty years. Graf argues that not all the violence can be
attributed to militias; poaching has been a difficult issue for decades, and for much of this period,
the population sizes for elephants, hippopotamuses, and gorillas had been declining rapidly until
the park rangers were enlisted to fight back. Since then, the couple of hundred hippos have
repopulated to over 1,500 and the gorilla population has doubled. The officials make use of
congohounds (bloodhounds) to track down poachers and air patrols to monitor militia
movements. Graf concludes that despite the problems Virunga National Park has faced, the
parks rangers have always come through, now focusing on conservation projects such as
creating sustainable fisheries, eco-friendly cooking fuels, green energy sources, and agroindustries. Despite the fact that this source concentrates on park rangers in different country, it
still provides useful information as to how rangers can help their parks through their duties, by
protecting the fragile animal populations and helping to conserve resources.

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Kirk, Ruth. "Want To Be A Park Ranger?." Natural History 124.7 (2016): 34. MasterFILE
Premier. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
In this 1956 article, author Ruth Kirk describes the various duties assigned to park
rangers in the services. She discusses her own personal experiences, being a ranger with her
husband, and notes several memoirs to add comedy to the article. Kirk states that a ranger has
many responsibilities, although, in summation, they mostly consist of preserving the
environments beauty and protecting the visitors to the parks. Because of this, rangers have to be
skilled in various trades such as emergency response, paperwork, hiking, law enforcement, and
public relations to name only a few--they have to be prepared for any number of situations that
could happen simultaneously. Kirk then goes on to describe that various opportunities available
to those who wish to work during the summer seasons and what types of pay are offered to all
levels of authority in the park system. This article will help describe the numerous duties of park
rangers and prove why they are helpful to the park system communities.

Lenihan, Daniel J. "Saving Place." Natural History 124.7 (2016): 10. MasterFILE Premier. Web.
19 Oct. 2016.
In Saving Place, retired archeologist of the NPS, Daniel Lenihan discusses the role of
park rangers in the overall maintenance of the NPS and argues that their role is often overlooked
and underappreciated. For an bureau that controls 300 plus historical and memorial sites as well
as around 58 true park territories, the job of these officers is a big one. Much of the time when
people picture a ranger, they imagine the friendly yet stern Ranger Smith from the animated
childrens show Yogi Bear. Lanihan states that in reality, the duties of a park ranger are often

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dangerous, requiring them to patrol backcountry territory where quite literally anything could
happen. In a 2008 study the author mentions, the numbers of federal officers assaulted in the line
of duty were calculated. The results showed that the statistics for NPS rangers were second only
to those working in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and were twice the rate of officers in the FBI or
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Lenihan goes onto state that of course there are
others in the agency that deserve recognition such as the volunteers inside the visitor centers and
the suits that deal with the political and economic aspects, but overall, the rangers remain to be
the face of the NPS. Part woodsman and part cop, they are trained to give interpretive talks, fight
forest fires, wrestle drunks down in the parking lot, and recover drowning victims. Including this
source will help prove the thesis that rangers improve their designated territories by performing
their daily tasks, especially tasks that are dangerous and require training to handle.

"Steps to Becoming a Park Ranger." How to Become a Park Ranger. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct.
2016.
In this article, the steps to becoming a ranger are outlined. The periodical starts off with a
brief introduction of the rangers: what they specifically do and how an interested person would
go about becoming one. The author then goes on to enumerate the different levels of park
authority from local to state and federal. Depending on what rung of parks a person is interested
in patrolling/managing along with the position they are interested in dictates what amount of
experience and education they will need: how long they will have to attend school and what
degree they may need to major in. No service requires any specific major, but they do state that
an interested man or woman will need to gain hours in at least one of the listed fields: natural
sciences, earth science, history, archeology, anthropology, park and recreation management, law

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enforcement/police science, or social sciences (to name a few). A person will also need
experience working with the parks themselves; seasonal positions and volunteer opportunities
exist for all types of skill sets. This source serves to enumerate the work and planning that goes
into becoming a park ranger, showing that their duties are not always easy to attend to; therefore,
when they successfully carry them out, the parks benefit from experienced rangers.

Totino, Richard. "New York State Forest Rangers: Celebrating 125 Years Of Protecting New
York's Forests." New York State Conservationist 64.6 (2010): 13. MasterFILE Premier.
Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
In this periodical, written in 2010, author Richard Totino takes a moment to congratulate
the New York state forest rangers on 125 years of protecting the states forests. He starts off
explaining the history of how the New York forest rangers were founded--that the state needed a
group of men to protect the newly created Forest Preserve. In the beginning, they were called
Fire Wardens and then Fire Patrolmen; over time they earned their distinctively contemporary
title of New York State Forest Rangers. Totino states that the duties of these officials are diverse
and that only several decades ago, the officials had to patrol the wilderness with just a pack and a
compass. Today, they are aided by modern transportation and technology: trucks, SUVs,
snowmobiles, GPS, motor boats, ATVs, and state police helicopters. As a search-and-rescue
volunteer, Totino narrates that he has spent a considerable amount of his time with these ranges
and that they are the most competent, dedicated, organized, and professional workforce he has
ever seen, and as the first onscene to many issues, they have to possess these qualities. He has
seen them efficiently organize everything from front-line fire defenses to search-and-rescue

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operations. This source will be helpful in demonstrating how rangers, of parks and forests alike,
use their everyday duties and skills to positively impact their assigned territories.