19 May 2009
Grizzly Bear Killed on Tracks
Bow Valley Alberta - A massive grizzly bear was
killed by a train last week west of the Fireside Day Use Area along the Bow Valley Parkway.
The male bear - who tipped the scales at 599 lbs - was struck at 1:15 a.m., 14 May 2009, making it the first bear death
of the season.
No grain was found on the train tracks or during a necropsy to determine the bear's stomach and intestinal contents.
Grain dropped on the tracks by train cars is an attractant to bears, but this one had only been eating natural food sources.
"It's really hard to say what took place there. I suspect it may have been startled. The train comes around there pretty
quickly - there's not a lot of time for wildlife to react," said human wildlife conflict specialist Steve Michel.
"It looks like the bear was feeding on vegetation along the ballast on the railway tracks, but it doesn't look like it was trying
to scavenge anything on the tracks."
Michel said it's particularly sad to lose such an extraordinary bear, who was exceptionally large for this ecosystem.
"A 600 lb grizzly, even during the autumn months, would be very very large size in the Rockies. But for a bear to be that size in
the spring is absolutely exceptional. It's almost unheard of," he said.
The bear was untagged, and after a thorough search of its body, Michel said there was no indication the bear had ever been tagged
before.
"It's a huge loss not only for the grizzly population but for the ecosystem as a whole," he said.
This grizzly was killed in the same area a female grizzly with two yearling cubs was killed in 2007.
Between 2000 and 2009, there have been eight grizzly bears killed on railway tracks in a 26-mile stretch between Banff
and Lake Louise. Of those eight, four were mature females who left behind five cubs. All five orphaned cubs did not survive after
their mothers were killed.
During that same time, 11 black bears were killed in Banff National Park, and another 11 were killed in Yoho. There were also 24 bears
struck by trains between Banff and Yoho, but it is not known whether they died from the impact.
Larissa Barlow
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