Ask an Intern at a State Park!

[TNT]

Greetings from the wilderness!

I am interning at a State Park here in Texas, where I do a variety of things that a Park Ranger would do, and observe Park Police Officers doing their jobs. The State Park I'm at provides camping, hiking trails, swimming, tubing, dancing (evenings), fishing lessons, and other occasional activities on the site. I've started the internship in the middle of May, and will continue until early to mid August.

My internet connection is fairly weak where I'm at, so I won't be able to reply too often, but I will do my best to answer each question. A lot of the time, I head to the library ten miles north of here to use their internet for a couple of hours.

Anyway, I hope I can answer some today before I head to work. Ask away!

[Makakaov]

Are you allowed to shoot off some blacks when they're overpopulating the park?

[SubliminalVirus]

Is it possible to reserve a large area of land for a massive fetish party/orgy? If so will there be wildlife there?...

[TNT]

At 7/9/14 02:54 PM, WahyahRanger wrote: *GAAAAASP* *drools*

Where did you happen to go to college, what's the name of the park, and what suggestions can you give to somebody in the Environmental field?

1). I graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in Criminal Justice.
2). Garner State Park.
3). That all depends on what exactly you want to do in the field.

At 7/9/14 02:54 PM, Makakaov wrote: Are you allowed to shoot off some blacks when they're overpopulating the park?

Absolutely not. Whenever the park gets too crowded, we close the day use booth so no one else can go in without a permit. We do this for safety reasons as people may require medical emergencies like a broken leg or a heart attack. This happens quite often during the weekends here.

At 7/9/14 02:55 PM, SubliminalVirus wrote: Is it possible to reserve a large area of land for a massive fetish party/orgy? If so will there be wildlife there?

If you are willing to pay for all the campsites, shelters, and cabins, then possibly (if that's your thing). We do have wildlife out here. Most of what I've seen so far are deer, turkeys, jack rabbits, birds, and squirrels.

[RydiaLockheart]

At 7/9/14 03:04 PM, TNT wrote: Absolutely not. Whenever the park gets too crowded, we close the day use booth so no one else can go in without a permit. We do this for safety reasons as people may require medical emergencies like a broken leg or a heart attack. This happens quite often during the weekends here.

So how do you know when there are too many people in the park? And how did they come up with that number?

[TNT]

At 7/9/14 03:10 PM, WahyahRanger wrote: So did you decide you didn't like your major and now are trying to get into a new field or is this just kind of a thing to expand your oppurtunities?

I like my major a lot actually, but overtime I decided that I want to pursue a slightly different career path that still involves Criminal Justice. Someday, I would like to be a Game Warden for Texas Parks and Wildlife. They enforce hunting, fishing, and wildlife regulations to name a few. Sometimes they pull people over for speeding or potential drunk driving as they are licensed peace officers of the State. I feel that being an unpaid intern at a State Park is a great way to get my feet wet.

At 7/9/14 09:18 PM, RydiaLockheart wrote: So how do you know when there are too many people in the park? And how did they come up with that number?

That's a good question. At the fee booth, we have a counter that we use to count the number of vehicles entering the park for day use (this does not include overnight use). On top of that, we have one of the rangers observe the parking lots inside the park to determine the number of spaces available at a given time. When it gets full, especially on the weekends during the summer, the ranger will announce via radio that the parking lot is getting close to full, and we make preparations to temporarily close the park. The counter is usually over 200 when it gets full, and it gives us a good idea on how close we are getting to that point.

Now we don't close the park for the whole day, and usually the park closes only for a few hours until enough people leave.