IT'S NO WALK IN THE PARK TODAY FOR RANGERS

WASHINGTON - National Park Service rangers still guide nature walks
and offer information and advice to millions of visitors each
year.However, they're also frequently called upon to put their lives
on the line to stop drug smugglers and apprehend violent criminals.

A series of attacks on rangers, including the fatal shooting in August
of one at Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and a
scathing report on problems in the Interior Department's law
enforcement structure have officials looking at changes aimed at
protecting rangers and park visitors.

Today's rangers are armed, in some cases with M-16s. They remain
spread thin, however, with fewer than 1,400 patrolling 84 million
acres in 387 parks, monuments and historic sites that attract more
than 400 million visitors annually.

And although the National Park Service has had a bigger budget in
recent years, it's the bureaucracy that has increased, not the number
of rangers.

National Park Service Director Fran Mainella issued a set of
directives this month to streamline the chain of command and patch
holes in the rangers' ranks that she said were nearing critical
proportions.

Problems with crime arise when staffing shortages force rangers to
patrol wide expanses alone, with backup many miles away, Park Service
Deputy Director Donald Murphy said.

And drug traffickers, smugglers of undocumented immigrants and
potential terrorists that rangers are expected to arrest, particularly
in parks along the borders and coasts, are more prone to violence than
ever, said Larry Parkinson, a former FBI assistant director.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton hired Parkinson in July as a deputy
assistant secretary to shape law enforcement across the department.

In the past month alone, park rangers helped chase down and arrest an
armed felon at Arches National Park in Utah, helped arrest a suspected
methamphetamine maker at Pea Ridge National Military Park in Arkansas
and made several drug arrests along the Mexican border.

"There's no doubt about it that criminals are getting meaner," said
Randall Kendrick, executive director of the U.S. Park Ranger Lodge, a
branch of the Fraternal Order of Police that represents park rangers.
"But other agencies seem to have adapted or adjusted. The Park Service
does not seem to be able to do this."

National FBI statistics indicate rangers are assaulted more often than
any other federal law enforcement officers, but many people dispute
the accuracy of park statistics because the Park Service doesn't have
a standard reporting procedure.

Different parks have different reporting standards, so some incidents
aren't reported.

Earlier this year, the Washington-based group Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility released figures showing the number of
attacks, threats and incidents of harassment against park service
employees had risen from 57 in 1999 to 80 in 2000 and to 222 in 2001.

A report by Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney said
the department's law enforcement was in disarray, its crime statistics
unreliable.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called it "one of the most
damning indictments of a federal law enforcement agency that I have
ever read."

Adopting a standard reporting system is one of the changes the
department is making. Others include a field training program, in
which rookie rangers start out patrolling alongside veterans, and
assigning to chief rangers at parks responsibility over investigations
and law enforcement matters, rather than having them answer to
superintendents.

The superintendents often lack law enforcement training, said Murphy,
former director of California's parks system.

The department also is preparing to ask Congress for more money to
hire law enforcement officers.

Kendrick said part of the fight is ensuring that more money means more
rangers.

A 2000 study by the International Association of Chiefs of Police said
that despite a 56 percent increase in the Park Service's budget from
1994 to 1999, there had been an almost 9 percent decrease in the
number of rangers.

Kendrick said that along the Blue Ridge Parkway, where he worked, the
administrative staff has doubled since 1970 while the number of
rangers stayed almost the same.

The 2000 study recommended the Park Service hire 615 new
rangers.