The ranks of law enforcement rangers continues to fall, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility/NPS file
The Interior Department appropriations bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would further gut the ranks of law enforcement rangers in the National Park Service, putting both visitors and natural resources in the park system at greater risk, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
According to PEER, "[T]he ranks of law enforcement rangers and special agents protecting our national parks have declined to the lowest level this century and could go much lower if the FY2025 budget recently passed by the House of Representatives is enacted. Even as the number of rangers declines, the demand for law enforcement assistance appears to continue to grow. Yet the National Park Service does not marshal basic information to assess its ranger needs."
As passed out of the House late last month, the bill would cut the Park Service main budget by $210 million, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.
PEER, in a release sent Friday, took the Park Service to task for failing to assess its law enforcement needs and for ignoring requests to release information on search and rescue events, crimes in the parks, and attacks on staff.
Based upon NPS data PEER extracted via the Freedom of Information Act:
- Overall, national park law enforcement positions declined by almost half (48%) between 2010 and 2023, with more than a quarter (27%) reduction just since 2021.
- Reliance upon seasonal or temporary rangers during peak periods has largely disappeared, with only 43 such slots remaining in 2023, compared with 323 just two years prior and as many as 825 back in 2010.
- Similarly, NPS special agents, plainclothes investigators assigned to complex cases, are down sharply with only 30 remaining nationwide.
Last fall, Interior submitted a long-awaited report from its specially created Law Enforcement Task Force that found low law enforcement staffing was negatively affecting incident response time as well as officers’ perception of their own safety, said PEER. This was leading to heightened stress and reductions in retention rates, the group added. NPS rangers make up nearly half (45%) of Interior’s entire policing positions.
“The Park Service’s ranger force is in deteriorating condition and getting worse,” said Pacific PEER Director Jeff Ruch, pointing to the House proposed FY 2025 budget that would cut overall NPS funding by 12.5%, resulting in the loss of another estimated 1,000 park staff. “This steady ebb of ranger staffing puts both visitors and park resources at greater peril.”
At the same time as the ranger force shrinks, park visitation has rebounded back to pre-pandemic levels and beyond with several major parks reaching new records, said PEER. In addition, search and rescues more than tripled between 2015 and 2021, while major crimes also spiked in recent years, it added.
Bob Krumenaker, who brought to an end his four decades with the Park Servicxe when he retired last summer as superintendent of Big Bend National Park, agreed there should be great concern over the decline in law enforcement rangers.
“The erosion in protection ranger numbers is a crisis, and the additional staffing cuts that would result if the House’s proposed budget passes would be devastating. But money for staffing, as much as it’s needed, won’t solve this problem by itself," he told the Traveler on Saturday. "There aren’t enough training slots at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) to get new protection rangers trained up. And many FLETC enrollees or recent grads shop for what they think will be better jobs in other parks or other federal agencies before they finish their training, despite the investment made by the parks that hired them.
"We’ve got to find a way to get more people through FLETC and then incentivize them to commit for several years to the park that hired them," he added. "It’s a problem that’s tough to solve but if we don’t, soon we’re not going to be able to protect park resources or visitors in all but the largest parks. We’re already in that situation in many parks. “
PEER maintains that the NPS has all but abandoned efforts to assess its law enforcement needs. Although NPS policy requires each park to perform a Law Enforcement Needs Assessment every three years, the agency has abandoned the practice, the group said. Meanwhile, a five-year-old Government Accountability Office report warns that security threats within national parks and other federal lands are rising without commensurate investment or appropriate planning.
Meanwhile, for the past two years, the Park Service has not replied to FOIA requests from PEER on these and related topics, causing PEER to file a lawsuit this spring seeking records on recent search and rescues, reported crimes, attacks on staff, and related items.
“Park Service leadership should publish this information proactively,” remarked PEER Litigation and Policy Attorney Colleen Teubner, who filed the FOIA suit in the U.S. District Court in DC. “Regular release of this data would help both Congress and the Park Service itself to better understand its law enforcement requirements.”
Comments
This is what defunding the police looks like. In the case of the NPS, both visitors and the Resource will suffer.
I am sick to death of putting my Rangers in dangerous positions calling them out with no backup for domestics, assaults, traumatic crashes? Seven different page outs just to get one Ranger able to respond. How long can we abuse and destroy these poor Law Enforcement Rangers and their families ? 16 to 20 hours on shift are the new norm despite any regulations. When visitors need help, they help. I'm sure it's just a line item on some piece of paper, but to those of us that are trying to hold it all together and to our visitors that are traumatized, it's much more. So much more...
Just another example of the House of Representatives leadership, from the so-called "Party of Law and Order", failing to walk its talk. With a $200 Million NPS budget cut, law enforcement in the Parks will undoubtedly eat a large part of it. Hopefully the Senate will have a better idea. At my last Park many years ago, law enforcement was understaffed, with signs of burnout and dysfunction. From everything I have seen and heard, things have only gotten worse, supported by the alarming statistics published by PEER. The NPS Law Enforcement Rangers deserve better.
I would like to see some ideas on how to fund this. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. What programs would you support cutting in order to add funding to the NPS? I can only really speak for GSMNP, but at least in this park.it's more an issue of poor management and an enabling association.(read Smokie Life)
Just one mans opinion.
T Burt, this was mentioned in a Congressional Research Report on FY25 spending for NPS:
Some Members of Congress and other stakeholders have questioned whether NPS assistance to nonfederal sites and programs should be reduced, to better focus on the agency’s “core” mission of managing national parks. In particular, some have encouraged national heritage areas, which are nonfederally managed, to develop plans for self-sufficiency, while Congress has increased heritage area funding over the past decade as new areas have been added.
I think "One Man's Opinion" about NPS mismanagement has merit. Indeed, I think the NPS has branched out into too many side projects which take money and resources away from its core mission. This isn't just the Agency's fault, but that of Congress (sometimes supported by NPS non-profit charities) adding new responsibilities without funding them.
At my last Park many years ago, its law enforcement organization was very top-heavy, with as many supervisors as field Rangers. Supervisors cost much more than field personnel, and do less field work. Some supervisors seemed to have little to do besides collecting information from their subordinates, then selectively editing and passing that info up to their own supervisors. I once had a supervisor read my arrest report and criticize me for being over-aggressive. His supervisor read the same report and advised me that I had been not aggressive enough. Several supervisors needlessly kept their Law Enforcement Commissions. In one instance, 2 Commissioned LE supervisors were cruising the Park when they happened upon a major crime in progress. Agsinst policy, neither was carrying any defensive equipement, so why keep a LE Commission? They had to call in a field Ranger to stop the crime, make the arrest and investigate the case. We also had many instances of higher Park management interfering with law enforcement issues for which they were utterly incompetent. I could continue with more examples of mismanagement and waste,, but will keep this brief. Late last year, the Interior Secretary's Law Enforcemeent Task Force issued its long-awaited report, which hardly addressed the acute and longstanding organizational problems with the Department's law enforcement programs. I participated in this exercise, which ended up largely a wasted opportunity. Unless these issues are seriously addressed, problems can only be expected to get worse.