Dan Sliva was walking his dog near the railway tracks by his home just south of Fernie, B.C., on a mid-March morning earlier this year when he first saw them: small grains scattered between the ties and steel.
When he bent to take a closer look, Dan realized he was seeing beans, likely from Alberta’s prairies, spilled across the tracks from a leaky train carriage.
Concerned about wildlife being drawn onto the tracks and into the path of trains, Dan called Wildsight’s Elk Valley Conservation Coordinator, Randal Macnair. Over the course of that evening and the following morning, Randal documented spilled beans and wheat at five sites along 27 kilometres of tracks.
“It was everywhere,” Randal recounts. “Wheat on one track and pinto beans on another.”
For many years, wildlife mortality due to grain on railway tracks in Banff, Yoho and Jasper national parks attracted a lot of public attention. A study published in Animal Conservation found that from 2012 to 2015, the average annual grain spillage along a 134-kilometre stretch of railway in Banff and Yoho national parks was equivalent to the annual caloric needs of 42 to 54 grizzly bears. But in the Elk Valley, where hopper cars typically carry coal not agricultural products, grain spillage hasn’t previously been a major issue.
Seeking advice, Randal and Dan reached out to local wildlife scientist Dr. Clayton Lamb, who’s research includes years of data on wildlife collisions along Elk Valley rails and roads.
“As it is, the Elk Valley has the highest grizzly bear mortality rate in the country, and one third of those deaths are due to collisions on rails and roads. Nearly half of all B.C.’s train-killed grizzly bears occur in the Elk Valley. It’s an issue that needs immediate solutions, for the bears and many other wildlife too,” Clayton says.
The Elk Valley sits at the heart of a critical wildlife movement corridor for animals travelling into and out of neighbouring wilderness areas, but it’s also laced with railway lines and roads like Highway 3.
Grizzly bear remains found on local tracks
As if to highlight the problem, the GPS-tracking collar on one of Clayton’s bears stopped moving in early July. When Clayton and Randal went down to investigate, they discovered the remains of EVGF66, an 18-year-old breeding female that Clayton had been tracking since 2017, strewn across the railway tracks.
According to Clayton’s data, EVGF66 is the fourth collared grizzly bear to have died on Canadian Pacific’s Elk Valley rails since 2017; many other un-collared bears have also died. Of the four collared bears, three were reported in B.C.’s Compulsory Inspection database.
In addition to the four collared bears known to have been killed by a train, two other bears were killed in collisions and never reported. These bears were tens to hundreds of metres from highways and railways with clear signs of a collision having taken place, such as a broken pelvis. It is not clear whether these animals were hit on the road or the rail as they are often close together in the Elk Valley. What is clear is that collisions are a major concern for these bears and not all animal collisions are being reported.
“The tracks are an attractive place for bears. There is often grain, sometimes berries nearby, and even other train-killed ungulates that they feed on. It creates a vicious cycle of mortality,” Clayton says.
Reducing wildlife deaths on tracks
A five-year pilot project in Banff National Park is investigating ways to reduce wildlife deaths on tracks by creating ‘quick escape routes’ and alternative travel corridors through adjacent forest.
The pilot is based on a Parks Canada-University of Alberta study that found train speed and track curvature are the two biggest factors in wildlife deaths on tracks; the faster a train is travelling and the sharper the curve of the tracks, the harder it is for an animal to detect it coming and get out of the way in time.
Other solutions trialled in Banff showed incredible promise but have yet to be used at scale. The early warning detection system, for example, was proven to alert animals of oncoming trains and give them the crucial seconds they needed to safely get off the tracks. However, this promising solution hasn’t been assessed across a large area and high collision zone to test whether collision rates are reduced. The Elk Valley would be an ideal place to trial such a system.
A question of accountability
When it comes to preventing wildlife deaths due to attractants like grain on tracks, Randal says the answer is much simpler: prevent spills in the first place by ensuring Canadian Pacific upgrades and maintains its hopper cars.
According to the federally-regulated Railway Safety Act, railway companies are responsible for the safety of their infrastructure, equipment and operations. This includes regularly checking and fixing their carriages to ensure doors are snug and no grain leaks out.
The provincially-regulated B.C. Wildlife Act also states it is illegal to “intentionally feed or attempt to feed dangerous wildlife or provide, leave or place an attractant in, on or about any land or premises with the intent of attracting dangerous wildlife.”
But without anyone enforcing these laws and holding CP to account, it’s unlikely change will happen.
“We’re not going to see Canadian Pacific take action to better protect wildlife on its tracks until someone starts forcing them to do so,” Randal says. “For too long, our governments have given Canadian Pacific a free pass but it’s time this company started caring for the environments in which it operates.”