Talks continue on BNSF grizzly bear 'take' plan

After more than 10 years of negotiations and stalled talks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still hopeful it can work out a grizzly bear habitat conservation plan with BNSF Railway.

The plan would go hand-in-hand with an “incidental take” permit that covers accidents where a train car hits a grizzly bear.

Trains running from East Glacier to the Bad Rock Canyon have killed 39 grizzly bears from 1984 to 2013, according to Tim Bodurtha, an FWS biologist.

Talks to create a habitat conservation plan for BNSF began in 2002 but stalled on a few occasions. Talks began again in earnest last year and have continued this year, Bodurtha said.

The sticking point is how BNSF will mitigate grizzly bear losses, he said. In this case, mitigation would likely be through a fund that helps pay for grizzly bear management and related costs in the region.

“How much that fund will be is what we have to figure out,” Bodurtha said last week.

The BNSF line follows most of Glacier National Park’s southern boundary. Over the years, the company has changed how it deals with everything from carrion to grain spills to lessen the impacts on bears. Spills are cleaned up quickly, better rail cars are used to transport grain, and the tracks are inspected daily through the corridor.

If a dead animal is found, it’s either moved out of the right-of-way away from the tracks or, in the case of a large animal such as an elk, hauled to a landfill, said Randy Wolff, a recently retired road foreman with BNSF.