A lawsuit will be filed against BNSF Railway in connection with the deaths of grizzly bears killed by trains or "rail activities"/NPS file
BNSF Railway Company is the target of a forthcoming lawsuit accusing the railroad of negligently killing grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act, near Glacier National Park in Montana.
Wildlife Guardians, supported by Western Environmental Law Center, late in October notified BNSF of its intent to sue over the bear deaths. The notice came shortly after two bear cubs were killed by a train near Whitefish. Back in June three bears -- a sow and her two cubs -- were hit and killed by a train near Marias Pass just south of Glacier National Park.
According to Wildlife Guardians,five grizzlies were killed by "railway activities" near East Glacier in October. A train struck and killed a cow, which then attracted five bears to the tracks. In five separate incidents, two died in train collisions and three were killed by cars on Highway 2, the group said in a release.
“While Burlington Northern has twiddled its thumbs for 15 years rather than taking essential measures to protect grizzly bears, trains have killed dozens of grizzlies, including at least four cubs,” said Sarah McMillan, conservation director at WildEarth Guardians. “This neglect, that has such lethal impact on protected bears, is simply unacceptable.”
The advocacy group said that, according to best available data, from 1980-2018 trains killed or contributed to the deaths of approximately 52 grizzly bears from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.
Approximately 1.2-1.5 BNSF trains run per hour on these railways in Montana, averaging 35 miles per hour. There is a slight increase in train frequency at twilight, when grizzly bears often feed, the group said.
“The 67-mile stretch of railway between West Glacier and Browning is where trains reportedly killed 29 grizzlies between 1980 and 2002,” said Pete Frost, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “Slowing the trains down, ensuring carrion are promptly cleared from tracks, and perhaps scheduling trains to run during the day and not at feeding time might reduce trains killing grizzlies.”
“The deaths of these grizzly bears and cubs was entirely preventable and there is no excuse for Burlington Northern’s continued failure to safeguard the railroad from these lethal collisions,” said Josh Osher, Montana Director for Western Watersheds Project. “Whether it’s a lack of concern, laziness or just plain greed, it’s time for BNSF to be held accountable and to take immediate steps to stop further killings.”
When a company’s activities kill threatened species like the grizzly bear, it is legally required to propose solutions in a habitat conservation plan that then can lead to an incidental take permit, the groups said.
BNSF officials told The Associated Press that crews work to remove carrion and spilled grain, which attracts bears, from the tracks.
Comments
None of this discussion about how many grizzly bears live in Alaska and Canada matters at all. Only one subspecies - Ursus arctos horribilis - is listed as a federally endangered species. Moreover, only Ursus arctos horribilis living in the lower 48 states are listed as a federally endangered species. Grizzly populations living in Canada and Alaska (and there are additional subspecies besides Ursus arctos horribilis that live in Alaska) are not listed. So yes, it is only the 1200 or so grizzly bears that live in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho that count. 50 CFR SS 17.11
Rump - does the train care about "lumping". My claim was that there are better than 40,000 grizzlies total - not just in Alaska, the links I provided add up to far exceeding that number. You are the only one making empahatic assertions that are unsubstantiated by the facts. 1.3 grizzles per year is hardly anything to get upset about.
Bucky, in jargon of taxonomy, "lumping" and "splitting" refer to whether you tend to "lump" diverse strains/subspecies of a species together and treat them all as a single gene pool or population or try to maintain that diversity by "splitting" consideration of them into separate concerns. The concept doesn't involve the trains; but, it is key to this discussion. I thought you understood the concept at least well enough to have an informed discussion. I apologize for misreading your knowledge of the topic. It would also be helpful if you could please try to carefully read what Anonymous posted at 4:30pm and then at 4:46pm above. He is correctly pointing out that the Glacier and Yellowstone grizzlies (Ursus arctos horribilis) are a separate subspecies from many of the brown bears in Alaska and Canada and that only this subspecies and only in the lower 48 states is covered under the ESA and only due to its reduced range and diminished gene pool size. Please try, try, try to understand that not all brown bears are the same, despite how similar they might look to you from a distance or in a photograph. The article and this discussion on Glacier bears and the BNSF impacts on them only involves the Distinct Population Segment of the subspecies Ursus arctos horribilis that is in the Glacier area. Again, please try, try, try to understand what is being discussed.
The northern continental divide ecosystem, of which glacier national park is a part, only has ~700 grizzlies. Killing one is a federal felony in the lower 48 by the measure of the endangered species act. The CEO of BNSF should be arrested without bond, until a functional cure for mortalities on the railroad right-of-way are implemented.
Please avoid personal attacks - Moderator
Silvertip - your number is the NCD alone and exludes the Greater Yellowstone population of about 600 bears. Further, these populations are growing 3-7% per year (30-70 bears) despite the infrequent kills by BNR.
https://ecos.fws.gov/docs/five_year_review/doc3847.pdf (page 24)
What exactly do you propose that would eliminate these mortalities on the right of way?
Glad - what was my mistake? And what do YOU propose BNR do?
EC - your simple mistake was to state that the bears killed by the train(s) came from a population of 40,000. Rather than to correct it and state that you were trying to provide a global count of grizzlies you just dredge up crap numbers from outfitters in Alaska and Canada - and those populations have zero to do with the population of bears in the Northern Rockies. As for what the railroads could do about it, there are no simple answers but several different approaches have shown some merit - whether they are economically viable or whether the "cure" would be worse than the disease has yet to be determined.
https://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/es/species/mammals/grizzly/2018GB_A...
https://www.ecowatch.com/wildlife-train-collisions-2634014954.html?rebel...