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 can be killed by trains in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho.
WildEarth Guardians and the Western Environmental Legislation Middle filed the lawsuit in federal courtroom 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 underneath the U.S. Endangered Species Act, enable a sure variety of protected animals to be killed in change for efforts by an organization to attempt to cut back the deaths.
BNSF Railway says that regardless that it doesn’t have a allow, it’s taking measures to stop 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 Legislation 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 difficulty 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 stay within the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem whereas 50 to 60 bears stay 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, nevertheless 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 median of two.5 grizzly bears per yr in change 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 stated it anticipated grizzly bears to be faraway from the endangered species listing 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 stated 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 last plan final month, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expects to have a call early subsequent yr, company spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak stated. The company has not revealed the ultimate plan submitted by BNSF Railway.
Regardless of not having a habitat conservation plan, BSNF Railway has applied lots of its proposed necessities, spokeswoman Lena Kent stated in an e mail. These embody eradicating spilled grain and lifeless livestock and wildlife from the tracks; lowering vegetation which may entice grizzly bears; serving to fund extra grizzly bear managers for the state and the Blackfeet Nation; shopping for radio collars, bear-proof rubbish bins and electrical fencing; and offering academic packages.
“BNSF believes that the current level of take due to train collisions is unavoidable,” the railroad stated 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 forestall unintended 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, equivalent to having trains decelerate on curves and in slender areas the place grizzly bears could 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 might 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 evening.
“BNSF’s goal is to eliminate avoidable grizzly bear mortality and maintain compliance with the Endangered Species Act,” Kent stated.
The draft plan additionally units apart $1 million to reply to any new data on the causes of grizzly bear deaths and any new know-how which may be capable of cut back them.
The lawsuit asks a decide 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 Outside Legacy Basis would distribute the cash put aside by BNSF in addition to monitor the railroad’s efforts, govt director Mitch King stated Friday.
“I’m very comfortable with BNSF’s role in this,” he stated, 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 doable for the railroad to cease killing bears solely, BNSF and King stated.
“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,” stated King, who labored for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 30 years.
