Park ranger

Their duties include (but are not limited to) law enforcement, wildlife and land management, community engagement and education, recreation area maintenance, and firefighting.

In medieval England, rangers, originally called under-foresters, were the most junior officials employed to "range" through the countryside enforcing the forest law imposed by William the Conqueror to protect the "vert and venison".

Rangers were full-time soldiers employed by colonial governments to patrol between fixed frontier fortifications in reconnaissance providing early warning of raids.

During offensive operations, they acted as scouts and guides, locating villages and other targets for task forces drawn from the militia or other colonial troops.

During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington ordered Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton to select an elite group of men for reconnaissance missions.

The word was resurrected by Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries from the old idioms used for the wardens – royally appointed – who patrolled the deer parks and hunting forests in England.

Some argue that Galen Clark was first when, on May 21, 1866, he became the first person formally appointed and paid to protect and administer Yosemite, thus become California's and the nation's first park ranger.

Prophetically, Yount recommended "the appointment of a small, active, reliable police force...[to] assist the superintendent of the park in enforcing laws, rules, and regulations.

[citation needed] The name was taken from Rogers' Rangers, a small force famous for their woodcraft that fought in the area during the French and Indian War in 1755.

For example, an interpretive ranger may perform a law enforcement role by explaining special park regulations to visitors and encouraging them to be proper stewards of natural and cultural history.

With the rapidity at which the challenges to protected areas are both changing and increasing, there has never been more of a need for well prepared human capacity to manage.

Adopt A Ranger has been incorporated to draw worldwide public attention to the most urgent problem that conservation is facing in developing and transition countries: protected areas without field staff.

[16][17] In recent years, the work of rangers and the harsh realities they face around the world are being captured in highly produced documentaries and films.