BNSF Completes Long-awaited Conservation Plan to Offset Train-killed Grizzly Bears
In a multi-agency partnership to account for the recovery setbacks posed by train-caused grizzly bear deaths in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, BNSF has pledged $2.9 million in funding to mitigate bear-human conflicts on the landscape.
By Tristan Scott
In an effort to minimize the deadly risks to grizzly bears living along a 206-mile stretch of railroad tracks spanning Montana’s northern tier — including the boundary of Glacier National Park — BNSF Railway Company has completed a habitat conservation plan (HCP) that includes nearly $3 million in mitigation funding to offset the recovery setbacks that train-killed bears pose in Montana’s Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE). In exchange for the conservation plan, the railroad behemoth on Thursday received a permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) authorizing the incidental “take” of 19 grizzlies, including nine females, within the permit area during its seven-year lifespan.
More than two decades in the making, the HCP has been a sticking point in BNSF’s long-awaited application to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for a permit allowing the company’s annual “take” of grizzly bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). However, a section of the ESA allows the federal wildlife management agency to issue permits for the “incidental take” of grizzly bears “if such taking is incidental to, and not the purpose of, the carrying out of an otherwise lawful activity.”
Since 1991, BNSF has acknowledged that its freight trains between Shelby and Trego pose an inherent threat to the grizzlies living nearby, dozens of which have been killed due to train strikes. BNSF has also demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with tribal, federal, state and local wildlife management agencies to minimize the risk to bears on the railway corridor while helping mitigate grizzly mortalities across the region.
But progress on the plan’s completion has stalled repeatedly even as grizzly bears continued to die on the tracks without a take permit in place.
Following spates of train-caused grizzly mortalities in 2004, 2020 and 2023, BNSF applied to FWS for an incidental take permit and formally submitted a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) outlining measures it would take to reduce bear deaths in the region. In December 2023, wildlife advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in federal court in Missoula accusing BNSF of violating the ESA by authorizing freight train operations that have killed dozens of grizzly bears in northwest Montana, including three collisions that year involving bears near Glacier National Park, one of which was collared for research purposes.
Still, neither the conservation plan nor the incidental take permit was finalized until now.
The landmark plan, developed in collaboration with BNSF, Amtrak, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), FWS, Glacier National Park, the Blackfeet Nation, and others, includes $2.9 million in funding that will be meted out over a seven-year period, regardless of whether grizzly bears’ recovery status changes.
“BNSF expects that within seven years, the NCDE population of grizzly bears will be delisted and the post-delisting monitoring period of the population will be complete,” according to the plan. “At that time, it is anticipated that the NCDE grizzly bears population will continue to be managed through a conservation strategy implemented through federal, tribal, state and local stakeholders in the region. At the end of the permit duration, BNSF may voluntarily continue its HCP conservation strategy. If the NCDE population is not successfully delisted within the seven-year permit duration, and incidental take is expected to continue to occur, BNSF may apply for a permit renewal.
The money included in the HCP will cover the salaries and operational costs of three new FWP grizzly bear technicians to respond to human-bear conflicts. It will also be used for attractant-reduction programs, such as bear-resistant garbage cans, electric fencing, remote cameras, radio collars, hunter education, and a new grizzly bear database over the life of the plan.
“The HCP mitigation measures will offset incidental take by providing the funding and structure to implement programs that reduce human-caused mortality in the HCP Corridor and elsewhere in the NCDE,” according to the plan.
The version of the plan finalized Thursday includes more funding than the most recent draft made public in 2023, which earmarked $2.3 million for mitigation work.
According to BNSF’s Matt Jones, the company’s commitment to providing mitigation funding through the HCP regardless of the federal status of grizzly bears is a demonstration of its good faith.
“BNSF appreciates the long partnerships with federal, state and tribal agencies that culminated in the HCP,” Jones stated in an email Thursday. “We recognize that our partners have conflict-mitigation obligations regardless of the listing status of the bears and understand that uncertainty in duration of BNSF funding under a permit could limit the conservation impact of those funds. Removing that uncertainty is consistent with BNSF’s long-standing commitment to protect the species.”
Montana’s Outdoor Legacy Foundation (MOLF) will oversee distribution of the mitigation funds, directing resources to high-priority conservation projects, while a technical committee will provide additional oversight and guidance, including representatives from BNSF, FWP, BFWD, and Amtrak. Representatives from Glacier National Park and the FWS will also have the opportunity to participate.
Although the plan includes the Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife Department (BFWD) among its beneficiaries, tribal leaders still had not reached a final “implementing agreement” with BNSF as of Feb. 13, an impasse the 73-page plan acknowledges in a footnote: “As of the date of this HCP there is some uncertainty about whether and how the BFWD will participate in this HCP. BNSF wants very much for BFWD to continue as a partner in this work, but understands that there are other factors that the Blackfeet Nation must consider before entering into the Implementing Agreement (IA).”
Under the IA, the Blackfeet have 90 days from the issuance of the permit to join.
Should the Blackfeet Nation choose not to participate in the plan, mitigation funding may be shifted to FWP or another entity for mitigation projects in the NCDE, while projects on the Blackfeet Reservation “that advance the biological goals and objectives of the HCP will be eligible to receive funding” through a technical committee, which the plan establishes.
BFWD Director Buzz Cobell said Thursday he’d have more information to share regarding the tribe’s involvement in the HCP next week.
A spokesperson for the USFWS’ Region 6 public affairs office in Denver said the federal agency issued the permit on Feb. 12 and approved the HCP, finalizing the documents following the publication of draft materials and a public comment period held in January 2021.
“Mitigation measures include removing attractants from the railway, implementing rapid-response protocols for grain spills, and providing financial support for human-bear conflict reduction efforts led by the Blackfeet Nation and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
A host of other government agencies and non-governmental organizations announced the plan’s completion in news releases Thursday.
“BNSF is grateful for the insight provided by stakeholders in this process,” John Lovenburg, BNSF’s vice president of environment and sustainability, said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to working with federal, tribal and state government partners and Montana’s Outdoor Legacy Foundation to ensure the effective implementation of the measures set out in the HCP, as well as the permit issued by USFWS.”
“We are working to implement solutions that support both wildlife and communities,” MOLF Director Mitch King stated. “This funding will help expand conflict prevention programs and support the work of localized bear specialists.”
The NCDE is home to one of the largest grizzly bear populations in the contiguous U.S., with an estimated 1,100 bears in the region. The area spans Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and surrounding public and private lands in northwest and north-central Montana. The habitat conservation plan aligns with broader efforts to maintain habitat connectivity and ensure the species’ continued recovery under the Endangered Species Act.
“This plan represents a significant partnership and step forward in our continued efforts to bolster grizzly bear recovery and conservation in northwest Montana,” according to FWP Director Christy Clark. “Funding from BNSF will support boots on the ground and benefit public safety and grizzly bears. We commend BNSF Railway for working with us on this plan.”
Trains hitting bears has long been a problem in northwest Montana, particularly in the 1980s and early 1990s, when a series of derailments left spilled grain along the right-of-way that attracted bears. In the 1990s, BNSF Railway predecessor Burlington Northern teamed up with FWP, the FWS, the National Park Service and other stakeholders to create the Great Northern Environmental Stewardship Area (GNESA) in an effort to reduce the number of train-related fatalities. The railroad increased its efforts to pick up spilled grain and to reduce vegetation along the tracks that might attract the animals.
According to data tracking bear deaths from 1975 and 2023, trains along BNSF Railway corridors killed or contributed to the deaths of approximately 75 grizzly bears from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE). In 2019, eight grizzly bears were killed as the result of railway activities, the most in a single year on record, while dozens more were removed from the recovering population through management actions, the result of bears killing livestock or getting into human food.
Following the train-related deaths in 2019, wildlife advocacy groups threatened to sue BNSF Railway for its role in train collisions killing grizzly bears. The following year, BNSF submitted its draft plan to FWS, which in February 2021 posted the 60-page HCP for public comment.
The three wildlife conservation groups that sued BNSF in 2023 for not having approved the plan and permit — the Western Environmental Law Center, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians — said Thursday they are “cautiously optimistic.”
“We are encouraged BNSF seeks to prevent its trains from killing more grizzlies,” said Pete Frost, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center.
On average, between 29 and 34 freight trains and two Amtrak trains operate on the railway through the NCDE every 24 hours. Under the new permit, trains may take 19 grizzlies, including nine females, within the seven-year period. In the event that more than the authorized take of the permit occurs, the USFWS Field Supervisor of the Montana Ecological Services Field Office and a special agent must be contacted within 24 hours, according to the permit.
“The BNSF railway runs right alongside Glacier National Park, some of the most prime grizzly habitat in the world, so we are hopeful risks to grizzlies will be lessened,” according to a prepared statement from Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project. “We are disappointed, however, that speed reductions aren’t part of BNSF’s conservation package. The railroad slows down for human safety, and ought to do that for grizzly safety as well.”
“We are pleased the Service is holding BNSF responsible for operating safely in threatened grizzly bear habitat,” Lizzy Pennock, carnivore existence attorney at WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement.