Two wildlife conservation teams have filed a lawsuit towards BNSF Railway over delays in finalizing a plan to scale back the variety of federally protected grizzly bears which might be killed by trains in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho.
WildEarth Guardians and the Western Environmental Regulation Middle filed the lawsuit in federal court docket in Missoula on Thursday arguing BNSF and different railroads that use their tracks, together with Amtrak, have been killing grizzly bears with out an incidental take allow for many years. Such permits, required below the U.S. Endangered Species Act, enable a sure variety of protected animals to be killed in trade for efforts by an organization to attempt to scale back the deaths.
BNSF Railway says that despite the fact that it doesn’t have a allow, it’s taking measures to forestall grizzly bear deaths.
The railroad’s first efforts to acquire an incidental take allow started in 2004 and have nonetheless not been accomplished almost 20 years later, the lawsuit filed by the wildlife conservation teams says.
“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 on the Western Environmental Regulation Middle in Missoula. “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.”
The tracks at situation within the case stretch between Shelby, Montana, and Sandpoint, Idaho, and between the Montana cities of Kalispell and Columbia Falls. The tracks additionally cross by means of two grizzly bear restoration areas: the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem — which incorporates Glacier Nationwide Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness — and the Cupboard-Yaak Ecosystem in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho. An estimated 1,000 grizzly bears dwell within the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem whereas 50 to 60 bears dwell within the Cupboard-Yaak.
The railway’s June 2020 draft plan for lowering the variety of grizzly bears killed was put out for public remark in January 2021, however it nonetheless hasn’t been authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The railroad seeks a seven-year allow permitting it to kill a mean of two.5 grizzly bears per 12 months in trade for efforts to scale back prepare strikes and to chop different human-caused deaths of grizzly bears elsewhere within the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.
BNSF, which is headquartered in Fort Value, Texas, additionally mentioned it anticipated grizzly bears to be faraway from the endangered species checklist earlier than the allow expires and left open the opportunity of enjoyable or modifying its phrases if that occurred. Montana requested the federal authorities to lift Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears within the northern Rocky Mountains in December 2021, and the Biden administration mentioned in February that it will consider it.
The wildlife conservation teams filed their discover of intent to sue over the dearth of a allow in October.
The railroad submitted its closing plan final month, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expects to have a choice early subsequent 12 months, company spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak mentioned. The company has not revealed the ultimate plan submitted by BNSF Railway.
Regardless of not having a habitat conservation plan, BSNF Railway has carried out a lot of its proposed necessities, spokeswoman Lena Kent mentioned in an electronic mail. These embody eradicating spilled grain and useless livestock and wildlife from the tracks; lowering vegetation that may entice grizzly bears; serving to fund further grizzly bear managers for the state and the Blackfeet Nation; shopping for radio collars, bear-proof rubbish bins and electrical fencing; and offering academic applications.
“BNSF believes that the current level of take due to train collisions is unavoidable,” the railroad mentioned in its proposed habitat conservation plan. Due to this fact, its plan additionally requires issues like instructing hunters to tell apart between black and grizzly bears to assist stop unintentional deaths elsewhere together with cleansing up winter kill alongside the railroad tracks every spring to keep away from attracting hungry grizzly bears rising from hibernation.
The lawsuit argues the railroad might do extra, resembling having trains decelerate on curves and in slender areas the place grizzly bears might not be capable of get away and lowering prepare site visitors at daybreak and nightfall.
In its allow utility, BNSF Railway argues slowing down isn’t sensible as a result of it will create choke factors that will decelerate the transportation of products for 1000’s of miles across the allow space and that grizzly bears are hit by trains always of the day and night time.
“BNSF’s goal is to eliminate avoidable grizzly bear mortality and maintain compliance with the Endangered Species Act,” Kent mentioned.
The draft plan additionally units apart $1 million to reply to any new info on the causes of grizzly bear deaths and any new expertise that may be capable of scale back them.
The lawsuit asks a choose to rule that BNSF Railway has violated the Endangered Species Act by not having an incidental take allow and to order it to stop killing grizzly bears.
If the incidental take allow is issued, Montana’s Out of doors Legacy Basis would distribute the cash put aside by BNSF in addition to monitor the railroad’s efforts, government director Mitch King mentioned Friday.
“I’m very comfortable with BNSF’s role in this,” he mentioned, acknowledging the railroad firm has already taken efforts to scale back the deaths. “I think they’re doing as good a job as anybody can do.”
It’s not potential for the railroad to cease killing bears solely, BNSF and King mentioned.
“In a sad way it’s almost a good thing to have more of these issues because it means there’s more bears out there,” mentioned King, who labored for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 30 years.
