MAMMOTH CAVE — With wild ginseng root prices hovering between $600 to $800 a pound, plant poachers keep rangers quite busy at Mammoth Cave National Park.

“There is a huge market for that,” Ranger David Alexander said. “We’ve caught people this year doing that.”

Protecting natural resources at the park is just one of the many jobs of a U.S. park ranger working in the Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Division. They also conduct traffic stops, work in drug eradication and investigate assaults, thefts and all other crimes that occur on park grounds and make arrests.

Their cases are ajudicated through the federal court system. In addition to their law enforcement duties, they are called upon to fight fires in the park and provide emergency medical services to anyone in need either on the surface, on the water or below the surface inside the cave.

“This job has a huge variety to it,” Alexander said. “I wanted to do something in law enforcement. But I didn’t want to be a road warrior. I wanted to do something outside.”

Alexander is part of a small team of park rangers who provide safety, security and emergency medical services to anyone within the confines of the 53,000 acres of land, more than 400 miles of cave system, 80 miles of roads, 90 miles of multi-use trails and 26 miles of river. The park service doesn’t release the number of law enforcement rangers assigned to each location.

“We’re police officers, but it’s so much more than that. The majority of us who do this job, that’s what we love about it,” Alexander said.

Alexander began working at the park as a cave guide in 1989 while he was in college at Western Kentucky University. He earned his degree in conservation of natural resources and parks administration. After college, he paid his way through a federal seasonal law enforcement training program in North Carolina and began working in law enforcement in 1992, but it wasn’t until eight years later that he obtained permanent, full-time job status. His story is similar to many others who enter his line of work.

“It is very competitive,” Alexander said about the process of becoming a full-time, permanent U.S. park ranger. Their numbers are few – 2,000 nationwide – and the job description is vast.

“No two days are the same,” Alexander said.

One moment may require rangers to chase poachers through the forest, and an hour later, carry a person with a medical emergency out of the cave and up to the surface to an awaiting ambulance.

“My job is to protect the resource,” Alexander said. “The resource is not just the trees, river and wildlife – it’s also the people who come here.

“We not only deal with the crimes like local law enforcement officers, we also deal with wildlife poaching, illegal activity on the (Green River) and plant poaching,” he said.

Ginseng, yellow root and black cohosh are among poachers’ favorites, with ginseng the most popular because of the high prices it fetches. The plants are used in herbal medicine.

Ginseng is a protected species and can only be harvested in Kentucky from Sept. 1 through Dec. 1. Only plants that are 5 years old or three-pronged may be harvested. Nothing may be harvested or hunted at the national park, where poachers have become a serious threat to the plant species. If a poacher takes the plant before berries are present, that plant is gone forever.

“The problem is as soon as the leaves come out, and people identify it, they are puling it up and taking the roots. Then there is no seed, and it can’t be replanted,” Alexander said. “A lot of it on private land has been harvested, and it’s not there anymore. That’s why there is a season for it. We put seasons on wildlife because if we didn’t, we’d end up like we did the 1940s when the deer population was nearly decimated.”

Rangers also watch for marijuana growers who use the national park illegally.

“It’s not just the roads and the campgrounds,” Alexander said. “We’re out in the fields and back country. We’ve got some really good training, and we’ve got some people with really good skills.”

Ranger Peter Zahrt works with Alexander. Zahrt actually lives in a home in the national park and is usually the first person to receive an after-hours call if something happens in the park.

He has worked as a park ranger for seven years, including two years at Mammoth Cave. Like Alexander, he paid his dues through seasonal employment with no benefits for two seasons before being hired full time with the park service. He also paid his way through the seasonal law enforcement academy. Zahrt has worked in a variety of federal parkland areas. This is his first assignment that includes a cave system.

“When you go in the cave, everything changes – no radio, no cellphone, it’s just you. You have to be careful,” Zahrt said. 

He carries multiple light sources with him, including two flashlights, glowsticks and a headlamp. If he’s called on to deal with an unruly guest inside the cave, he wants to make sure he doesn’t run out of artificial light. There are landline phones throughout the cave, as well as kerosene lanterns.

“It’s not a place where you want to be in the dark,” he said.

Zahrt, like Alexander, loves the job and the variety of duties that come along with the work. He marvels at the sections of the cave where ancient cave dwellers created drawings – those drawings and their footprints are still preserved in the cave.

“It’s just amazing to be that close to history,” Zahrt said.

— Follow news editor Deborah Highland on Twitter at twitter.com/bgdnnewseditor or visit bgdailynews.com.