BNSF finalizes plan to reduce train collisions with grizzlies

Laura Lundquist

(Missoula Current) After years of delay, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway finally has an official plan to reduce collisions with grizzly bears in northwest Montana.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife last week released a finalized habitat conservation plan to reduce the number of grizzly bear deaths that have occurred along the 206 miles of BNSF Railway track that passes through the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. About 30 freight trains and two Amtrak trains speed through the area every 24 hours.

Between 1975, when grizzlies were listed as threatened, and 2023, 75 bears have died along that stretch, with three dying in 2023 alone. During those decades, BNSF didn’t have an incidental take permit but was never prosecuted for killing a threatened species.

Under the new plan, BNSF will use a “rapid response protocol” to ensure any grain spills or dead animals are quickly removed from rail lines and employees will inspect grain cars for leaks and remove any leaking cars. Employees will manage vegetation in the right-of-way to reduce attractants such as berry bushes and fencing will be installed to prevent livestock from accessing sections of the rail line, a suggestion made by the public. BNSF will also fund three new grizzly technicians to reduce human/grizzly conflicts throughout the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. The plan will remain in effect for seven years, regardless of the status of Endangered Species Act protections.

The Fish and Wildlife Service also issued an incidental take permit to BNSF that limits the number of grizzlies that trains can hit before the railway company is in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Under the new permit, trains can kill up to 19 grizzlies, including 9 females, within a seven-year period. That equates to about three bears each year.

The plan is 20 years in coming. BNSF first prepared a habitat conservation plan and applied to the Fish and Wildlife Service for an incidental take permit in 2004, but nothing came of it. The long-term average for the number of train-killed bears remained at about two per year. At Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee meetings, wildlife advocates would repeatedly lobby agencies to do more to protect bears from being killed on railways and highways, in addition to all the other ways people kill bears.

Then, 2019 saw the train-caused mortality spike to eight bears, including a sow and her two cubs. That prompted two environmental groups, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians, push harder, notifying BNSF in October 2019 that they would sue the company if bears kept dying and BNSF didn’t do more to stop it.

In response, BNSF again prepared a habitat conservation plan and applied for a permit in 2020. In a January 2020 release, BNSF said it created a rapid-response program for grain spills, the primary attractant for bears to railways, and expanded education of railway employees. A year later, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that once BNSF’s conservation plan was satisfactory, the Fish and Wildlife Service would issue a take permit to allow 18 grizzly bears to die over seven years along the 206-mile run between Trego, south of Eureka in northwest Montana, and Shelby, east of Cut Bank.

But neither the plan nor the permit were finalized.

Western Environmental Law Center attorney Sarah McMillan said in 2021 that it wasn’t clear what caused the delay. Apparently, in 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took public comment on the BNSF plan and returned it to the company with suggestions. But, after revising the plan, BNSF didn’t follow up, McMillan said. Some suggest that BNSF was betting the bear would be delisted, so no further action would be needed.

In 2023, trains struck three grizzlies on the former Montana Rail Link tracks between Cut Bank and Sandpoint, Idaho. So in December 2023, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians followed up on their threat and filed a complaint against BNSF in Missoula federal district court.

The complaint suggested a number of actions that BNSF could take to make tracks safer for bears in addition to cleaning up grain spills. Remedies included having trains slow down around curves or in bottleneck areas like canyons to give bears a chance to get out of the way; installing warning systems that use bells and flashing lights to scare wildlife when a train is approaching; and installing electrified mats or motion-detection alarms near trestles to scare bears away. The lawsuit also suggested that these remedies should be installed on tracks between recovery areas to prevent the loss of migrating bears.

On Thursday, the plaintiffs said they were cautiously optimistic that BNSF will follow the plan so fewer bears will die.

“The BNSF railway runs right alongside Glacier National Park, some of the most prime grizzly habitat in the world, so we are hopeful risks to grizzlies will be lessened,” said Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project. "We are disappointed, however, that speed reductions aren't part of BNSF's conservation package. The railroad slows down for human safety, and ought to do that for grizzly safety as well.”

Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.