Now that the five-year, $1 million CP/Parks Canada study into grizzly bear mortality on mountain park rails is complete, are you feeling a tad underwhelmed by the result?
Join the club.
We realize the Canadian dollar hasn’t been all that strong in recent times, but it’s pretty clear $1 million doesn’t go as far as it used to when it comes to studies these days.
Now, in the Bow Valley, as many citizens will attest to, little happens until a given issue/scenario has been studied ad nauseam. But when it comes to the now wrapped up CP/Parks study – being that actual recommendations or action items to be taken by CP are conspicuous by their absence – we wonder about its taking five years to be put together.
While we applaud the science that went into the study – science is what Parks should be about when it comes to anything environmental or wildlife related – we feel most of the answers found could have been had simply by consulting Parks Canada’s own wildlife managers. The very wildlife managers who are on the ground, already in place and who deal constantly with bears and know many of them on a near-personal level.
Findings – which really don’t involve CP doing more to rectify the situation – include: there is no single silver bullet that will address the problem; bears are attracted to grain on the tracks, along with vegetation and carcasses alongside them, that vegetation management should be done along the rails and the very cool notion that bear 122 (The Boss) may be saving bears by dominating the rails himself.
The fact bears raid squirrel stashes of grain in close proximity to the rails, we suppose, is something new and interesting, but even fairly casual readers of the Outlook, in particular those who love the wildlife stories, could have told you grain attraction is a problem, that bears love dandelions in spring and are drawn to buffaloberries and other tasty vegetation that grows in sunny locations along the tracks and other open areas.
To be fair, we are pleased the idea of train-activated warning devices that could be (should be) installed to warn wildlife ahead of a train barreling through an area has been raised.
Perhaps, like staff here at the Outlook, you were thinking (hoping?) that a five-year, $1 million study would have resulted in results with more of a foundation – such as some certainty as to where fencing should be located in high kill zones to keep bears off the rails, that maybe some of the electromats would be found to be ideal deterrents, that actions concerning the main issue of grain spilled on the rails would be stepped up …
We would certainly hope that nobody is placing much reliance on the idea of The Boss continuing to help Mother Nature by intimidating other bears to keep off the rails. The Boss, while clearly an apex predator, could be killed within a week of coming out of his den this spring.
In the end, really, and this is certainly not new, it all comes down to the ongoing issue of grain on the tracks attracting bears to their doom.
And being that not all grain cars CP is hauling are its own, and therefore unlikely to be repaired to stop leaks, unless the rail giant steps up to increase grain vacuuming and removal, and whatever else may be necessary, the situation of bears dying on the rails will not change.
Now that the study is done, the question is – now what?
