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
I share silvertip's irritation, but don't believe arresting the BNSF CEO would be productive ...probably backfire. However, the Western Environmental Law Center thinks "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." And, again, I know that all of these actions are possible, at least to some extent. Doing so will it be inconvenient and perhaps a bit less profitable, which is why BNSF management, beholden to their shareholders as they are, won't want to be seen as voluntarily agreeing or even giving in too easily. But, this lawsuit, filed by Wildlife Guardians, might give those jerks the cover they need to do the right thing. I support the lawsuit and hope it results in the creation of a very tight and specific corrective action plan, with tight enforcement mechanisms, and some funding for additional fencing or other infrastructure to keep both livestock and wildlife off the tracks along especially sensitive areas of this seventy or so mile stretch. All I can add at this point is that it isn't just carrion that needs to be promptly cleared from the tracks. Some of the worst problems have been caused be grain spills. When spilled grain or other "fermentable" cargo has been left out in the wet weather, there have been not only a few bears, but gangs of drunken bears, on the tracks and that was worse.
EC - my mistake is that I did not enter my name to my comments/answers to your question and thus it shows as anonymus. Mine is the firsr response immediately following your question - with links to the FWS report and the article by Ecowatch
This article made no distinction regarding species, the court decision re relisting in Yellowstone made no mention. This extensive teatise (329 pages) discussing the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems (which dives deep into Canada) makes no distinction. http://igbconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/180615_NCDE_Conservatio... Do a google search on grizzly bears and you will be hard pressed to find a mention of subspecies in any of the top results. The fact is most people can't and don't make the distinction and propably don't care.
But, I will humor you. Lets use the count of 1200 and see if that refutes my point. (spoiler alert - it doesn't) About 50 of these are killed each year by various means which puts trains at about 2 percent of these mortalities. Meanwhile the population is growing by 30-50 bears each year ( https://ecos.fws.gov/docs/five_year_review/doc3847.pdf%C2%A0) despite these mortalities. Trains killing 1.3 bears per year in a population of 1200 bears and growing is insignificant either to the population of bears or the survival of the grizzly.
Yet you want to impose $10s of millions of additional expenses or expanded overhead on the RR which will have far more negative impact on the employees and consumers than it will on the shareholders.
Just how out of touch can people be?
Strange that they aren't suing to ban motor vehicles which seems to be a far bigger problem. https://www.kpax.com/news/montana-outdoors/2019/05/01/mdt-wildlife-offic...
Or, could it be that like many not for profits that even when there aren't real problems, they feel the need to manufacture one so the money keep rolling in?
After all, what would all those people do for work if they actually managed to solve a problem for once.
Rumple. For all the comments in lumping. I assume you are familiar with the controversy over "splitting" as well? How often populations split into sub groups even though the species are genetically equal and stable. When you split a species into all of these tiny sub populations certainly the loss of one animal looks substantial. However if that group is part of a much larger and genetically equal population its just fun with numbers and has no actual impact on the broader genetic diversity. By every legitimate study i have seen a few hundred bears yet alone seven hundred bears is more than enough to maintain a viable population and genetic diversity. Sadly these lawsuits rarely have a thing to do with the actual bears. But a nice chunk of change covering inflated legal fees and punitive damages going to the coffers will be appreciated. If you actually look into it you will find that BNSF has implemented programs already to help address this issue but they will still be sued for some fully unreasonable solution only to be settled for a pile of cash because that is all the WELC wants anyway. Plenty of species that are under much greater pressure than the grizzley, but they do not have the broad fundraising appeal that charismatic megafauna like the grizzly do so nobody cares.
While I am not one to dispute any of the numbers of grizzley bear populations in the lower 48, Canada, or Alaska I will say I think you might be missing the point. I am all for the welfare of grizzley bears and the death of any of these magnificant creatures is a shame. I also understand that the BNSF can undoubtedly do more to help in avoiding train bear collisions. Lawsuits against the railroad, seem to set a bad precident. What's next? The next time I am in Glacier and I unavoidably hit a bear. Will I also be sued? This would help in cutting down the number of visitors to the park!