This year, I accepted a position with Shenandoah National Park as a seasonal Visitor Use Assistant (VUA), one of many different positions that earn the title National Park Ranger.  Last year, as a volunteer, I performed nearly the same duties as now, except that now I wear a National Park Ranger badge and uniform… and, oh yea, I get paid.  Some other positions with the same lofty title of National Park Ranger include specialists in different disciplines of science, recreation, law enforcement, wildland fire fighting and so on.  The many different National Park Ranger positions require different skills and qualifications, but the visitors do not usually know that.

                 I completed my week of training for VUA last week and worked Sunday through Thursday at the Information Desk in Byrd Visitor Center, answering visitor’s questions about the park, such as where should we hike.  My job requires that I make an assessment of the visitor’s abilities before I recommend a trail that may be safe for some but not for others.  I don’t send a three hundred pound man down Dark Hollow Falls Trail and expect him to be able to return up the 400 foot elevation climb without health risk. 

 

                I want to do my very best at this job and wonder what other Ranger jobs might be of interest to me in the future.  That is an interest that does not need to be pursued any time soon, because I love this job right now.  I still have a great deal to learn to be really good at this job.  The visitors, that come to me for information are unaware that I am not the park wildlife specialist, or the botanist, or the ridge runner, who has hiked all 500 plus miles of trails.  They just see the uniform and badge, expecting me to know the answer to their question.  I take spare moments to study field guides to learn as much as I can in preparation to the questions.

 

Today, I was reading about adaptation, in Peterson Field Guide “Eastern Forests”¹, in particular how certain plants have evolved defenses against insects that would eat the plant’s leaves.  The maple has a tough sheath around its veins that discourages insects from attacking the sap.  The leaves also have glass-like deposits on and in the leaves. 

 

Studies have been done of small caterpillars that had eaten maple leaves.  The caterpillars were examined with an electron microscope and the images revealed that the caterpillar’s teeth have excessive wear.  The caterpillars would not be able to keep eating the maple leaves with the damaged teeth.

 

So now I am looking into another National Park Ranger job that may be of interest… Caterpillar Dentist.

 

                                                -- Ranger Bob 

 

P.S.  Ranger Mara pointed out that I may have difficulty finding a teeny tiny dentist chair.

 

¹                      Peterson Field Guides Eastern Forests, John Kricher / Gordon Morrison, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston  New York 1998,  Pages 260-261.