A Day in the Life of a Park Ranger

Note: Canadian parks generally have park wardens rather than park rangers, the term used in the United States. Apart from the difference in name, the job is much the same on both sides of the border. If you go to a park this summer, watch for the park rangers or park wardens - and remember the Oregon park rangers described here by author Margriet Ruurs. -CE

If you are interested in science - biology, ecology, being outdoors and leading a life of adventure - you might want to consider a career as a Park Ranger. Park Rangers, or wardens, manage wildlife, the environment, but also people who visit parks and interact with wild animals.

When Julie goes to work, she doesn’t know what will happen that day. Some days she drives her truck through the park to make sure everything is okay. Or she glides across the lake in her kayak to check the water depth and quality. Other days she has to cut down a tree that poses a danger to campers, writes a ticket to someone who broke the law or sits behind her desk to do paperwork.

Julie knows one thing for certain: no day on the job is ever the same!

Julie has been a Park Ranger for almost 20 years. When she was a kid, Julie loved to go camping with her family. It was back then that she decided that she would like nothing better than to work in the outdoors. “If you like camping and hiking and boating, there’s no better job!” she says.

Park Rangers learn about law enforcement and help to ensure that park visitors respect and learn about their natural environment. “Park Rangers are a kind of policeman in the outdoors,” Julie says. She helps to protect wildlife, such as bears or bobcats, that may live in the park and makes sure that both people and wildlife are safe.

Not everything about the job is exciting: Park Rangers may also have to paint picnic shelters and tables, clean outhouses and fire pits. Some Park Rangers work in Historic Parks that preserve an important historic place for the future.

Doug is one of Julie’s colleagues. He works at a historic heritage park. Here he shows a family how an old grist mill uses the power of water to grind flour in the olden days. Interpretation of nature or history, and teaching people how to interact with their environment can be a big part of the job of a Park Ranger.

At night, Julie often patrols campgrounds. She walks around with another ranger. They chat with the campers while making sure that they treat their environment with respect. Often Julie works long days and, by the time she crawls into bed, she is tired but happy to be a Park Ranger.

What she likes best about her job is that no two days are ever the same. “I love the variety!” Julie smiles. Who knows what tomorrow may bring!

Become a Junior Park Ranger

In American parks, if you are interested in protecting wildlife and learning more about natural areas, you can become a Junior Ranger. Many State and National Parks have Junior Ranger Programs. You can participate in special programs such as interpretive hikes and campfire programs. Often, you will get a special certificate or badge.

Most parks have special programs in the summer:

• In Grand Canyon National Park, you get a special handbook for Junior Rangers that will help you to learn about the environment. 
• Louisiana State Parks will give you a special punch card to get punched each time you visit a State Park’s event. After three punches, you will receive a Junior Ranger Handbook full of activities. Once you complete the activities, you receive a special Junior Ranger patch, a certificate and a personalized letter from the Director of State Parks in Louisiana.
• In Yellowstone National Park, you can even go on a Junior Ranger snowshoe hike in the winter.

Be a Web Ranger or an Xplorer

If you can’t visit a Park in person, the U.S. National Park Service offers a “Web Rangers” site where you can learn about dinosaurs' diets, turtles in Florida and cave drawings made by Native Americans hundreds of years ago.

In Canada you can sign up for the Xplorers program before visiting a National Park.

All photos by Margriet Ruurs.

Elephants For Lunch

By Margriet Ruurs

I am in Zambia, Africa - on my first safari, in hopes of seeing big game in their own, natural environment.

An alternative to a game drive is to take a walking safari. Does a walking safari mean that you can run into lions?! In a way, it does.

So the guide takes us to an area where he feels we are unlikely to run into anything too big or too dangerous. It is not a long, arduous hike, but an interesting stroll through the African bush. The guide reads the ground like the pages of an open book.

“Look.” He points. “A hyena walked here. He was not in a rush because only the indentation of two middle claws shows.”

He also points out where baboons dined on the fibre of elephant dung. We see gorgeous round clay pots, broken open. They are the large balls that a dung beetle rolls through the mud.



Our guide shows us intricately woven weaverbird nests that always hang on the west side of a tree.

There’s even a bird called a tailorbird that stitches leaves together with real stitches.

A weaverbird nest.

We follow trails made by elephants and hippos, see a large flock of bright green love birds that look like the leaves of a tree flying off.

One afternoon, we have lunch at Track & Trail River Camp. They’ve set a little table for us and when I look up I spot an elephant. Then three more. They come within metres. From the safety of the kitchen door, we watch as they stroll past, right next to the bar.

We visit Chipembele Wildlife Centre, an impressive visitors’ centre set up and run by a British couple. They were both police officers in England, obsessed by Africa. Seventeen years ago they moved here, built a house in the bush and now educate African children on the importance of wildlife. On the side, he catches poachers.

 We found an elephant tusk on the ground.

He tells us about one poacher who has just been released from prison. Through some local contacts, we manage to make a date with the guy and spend an afternoon chatting with him. What motivates a poacher? Money.

The (ex)poacher has nine children and no job. The 70% unemployment rate in Zambia means no work, no income. So how does a father provide for his family? How does he put food on the table?

The easiest way is by poaching. Edwin told us he built his own guns and would spend the night in the bush, hunting impala, buffalo, kudo and more. He ate the meat but mostly sold it.

He got caught. At some point he got offered a job but screwed up and went back to poaching. He ended up in jail. Jail in Zambia is not for the faint of heart. “1,500 men in one cell,” he says. People right next to him died of suffocation. One meal a day of a kind of uncooked porridge. It was a wonder that he survived the year. But now he swears he will never poach again. Only time will tell. We hope he will find a job. His skills as a tracker are probably unparalleled. And he now seems to agree: wildlife needs to be protected. Wildlife brings tourists, and tourists bring money.

We also understand the problems caused by free roaming wildlife. Herds of elephants trample and eat the crops of corn. They break into grain storage units. Governments try to help villagers by building stronger storage units. They supply villagers with ‘chili bombs’ and help them to plant chili hedges to discourage elephants.

In Mfuwe, the village nearest the National Park, people have lots of trouble with elephants. “They come through our village at night and eat all of the mangos,” our driver tells us, “but people in the next village can sleep outside without fear of being trampled.”

I think about this as I fall asleep to the music of cicadas and the loud ‘snoring’ of hippos just outside our chalet along the river. That night we have the very first rainfall of the new rainy season - the first rain in seven or eight months. It will soon transform the region into a lush green forest with wide rivers and newborn animals. Animals, who will hopefully continue to live in their natural habitat without being brought to the brink of extinction.

Photos by Margriet Ruurs.