Two environmental groups are suing western U.S. Class I railroad BNSF because its trains allegedly kill grizzly bears on federally protected grounds in Idaho and Montana, violating the Endangered Species Act.
Santa Fe, New Mexico-headquartered WildEarth Guardians and Hailey, Idaho-based Western Watershed Project said Thursday that BNSF should change operating schedules or train speeds to prevent deaths of grizzlies along 206 miles of rail in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE), located in and near the Northern Continental Divide and the Cabinet-Yaak regions. The NCDE also crosses multiple national forests and is on the southern border of Glacier National Park.
While BNSF has been seeking to develop a habitat conservation plan (HCP) that would mitigate grizzly bear deaths, the plan doesn’t include steps to change schedules or speeds, the environmental groups said in a release. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also has yet to approve BNSF’s HCP or an incidental take permit, they said. These permits can be sought when a non-federal entity believes their otherwise lawful activities may result in the taking of endangered or threatened animal species, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Furthermore, BNSF will add the Montana Rail Link to its network, which could threaten grizzly bears further.
“We are extremely disappointed that, after all these years, BNSF has refused to change its business practices to prevent the unnecessary deaths of Montana’s iconic grizzlies, resulting in the tragic deaths of three bears just this fall,” Sarah McMillan, wildlife and wildlands program director at the Western Environmental Law Center in Missoula, Montana, said in a release. Western Environmental Law Center filed the suit Thursday in the Missoula division of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana.
“When a company chooses to operate in the epicenter of key habitat for a threatened species, it must take some responsibility to adapt practices to minimize its impacts on these animals,” McMillan continued. “It is truly ludicrous for BNSF to kill at least 63 threatened grizzly bears with no tangible action from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency in charge of protecting endangered and threatened species. The draft incidental take permit allowing BNSF to kill even more bears annually than it has on average to date is appalling.” The lawsuit gives 2000 as the starting date for when the environmental groups began tracking grizzly bear deaths.
In addition to lowering train speeds to lessen the odds that a grizzly will be struck by a train, the environmental groups are asking the for the installation of train-triggered warning systems, such as flashing lights and bell sounds, and the installation of electrified mats near a trestle and motion-sensor alarms that would prevent a bear from entering a trestle.
The groups also want BNSF to prevent the leakage or spillage of grain from rail cars as well as monitor tracks so that other livestock don’t go onto the tracks, to prevent that livestock from also being killed and thus tempting the bears to go for the animals’ carcasses.
FreightWaves reached out to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for comment.
BNSF (NYSE: BRK-B) told FreightWaves that while it doesn’t comment on specific lawsuits, it has “been working closely with stakeholders, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the Blackfeet Nation to eliminate avoidable grizzly bear mortalities since the 1990s.” BNSF also developed an HCP, and a draft of that plan was published in January 2021 and is before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review.
According to BNSF, the HCP includes the following measures:
- Removing spilled and leaked grain and carrion from track structures.
- Reducing/removing vegetation that might attract grizzlies.
- Providing funding for additional grizzly bear managers for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Blackfeet Nation.
- Providing funding for radio collars, bear-proof garbage bins, electric fencing and grizzly bear awareness programs.
“BNSF’s goal is to eliminate avoidable grizzly bear mortality and maintain compliance with the Endangered Species Act,” BNSF told FreightWaves on Friday.
The issue of bears getting on train tracks is not new; both passenger trains and freight trains have had to grapple with the issue, according to 2019 research from the University of Alberta. In that research, scientists sought to develop a warning system to teach bears to avoid trains by focusing on how and why bears visit railway tracks.
A 2022 paper from the University of Alberta confirms that research on preventing bears from getting on train tracks — or getting bears off the tracks before a potential collision with a train — is ongoing.
“The combination of train-triggered warning devices on curving portions of track and directional speakers that amplify train sound on straight sections of track could be a cost-effective, environmentally sensitive, and highly salient method for alerting wildlife to the presence of trains to prevent train-wildlife collisions,” said a May 2022 paper from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta titled “Novel approaches for mitigating wildlife-train collisions in montane areas.” The paper also referred to research on similar topics occurring in Sweden and Poland.
“The signals must be audible with sufficient distance to facilitate escape behaviour, but not so loud that they impose sound pollution or dangerous sound levels,” the paper said. The university department also published another related research paper in 2022.
Meanwhile, Canadian office Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (NYSE: CP) undertook a joint grizzly bear research initiative supported by Parks Canada, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. The initiative kicked off because of grizzly bear deaths involving trains at the national parks at Banff and Yoho.
A page on CPKC’s website also mentions the initiative, saying that it was first launched in October 2010 with a $1 million grant from CP and it lasted five years.
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