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One of Banff’s most famous grizzlies has lost a cub to a train.
One of Bear 142’s two cubs, believed to be less than a year old, was struck and killed by a train on Sunday, a Parks Canada spokesperson told CBC News.
The roughly 16-year-old mother bear doesn’t shy away from places with human activity, making her a familiar sight to many in the Bow Valley, including wildlife photographer Jason Leo Bantle.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Bantle, comparing the loss to the death of white grizzly bear Nakoda in Yoho National Park in 2024.
“These mother bears are so important to continuing the population of bears in the valley,” Bantle said. “Every mother is very important.”
It’s estimated there are about 65 grizzly bears in Banff National Park. They’re classified as a threatened species by the Alberta government and a species of special concern by the federal government.
Bear 142 is the daughter of Bear 122, better known as The Boss — a bear believed to have fathered well over 50 per cent of the grizzlies in Banff National Park.
Bear 142 is no stranger to loss: in 2020, notorious grizzly Split Lip made headlines when he killed and ate the mother bear’s 2.5-year-old cub.
Grizzly bears have low reproductive rates. Adults typically begin breeding when they’re five to eight years old, and sows have one litter every three to five years after that, which contributes to their sensitive status.
The Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) rail line running through Banff National Park leads to “a lot of mortality for inexperienced grizzly bears,” Bantle said.
Parks Canada has recorded 19 grizzly bear deaths on railways in Banff National Park since 2005.
Parks Canada has confirmed that three grizzly bears have died as a result of being hit by a train. That has one conservationist and well-known wildlife photographer calling for more to be done to protect the animals.
Steps have been taken to reduce collisions
A joint study by Parks Canada and CPKC, then known as Canadian Pacific, was launched in 2010 to address grizzly bear mortality on the tracks in Banff and Yoho national parks.
Since then, they have developed and improved alternative wildlife travel routes away from high-risk zones, conducted prescribed burns and forest thinning to create better habitats away from the tracks, and implemented a multi-year vegetation management program to clear attractants and open escape paths.
“Parks Canada has done quite a bit of that to make it easier for bears to get off the rail, and I think that’s been helpful,” said University of Alberta professor Colleen Cassady St. Clair, who has studied wildlife mortality on train tracks extensively.
She said bears are attracted to the tracks by a variety of factors like grain spills, an abundance of light-loving plants like buffaloberries and dandelions, and a lack of human activity.
CPKC spokesperson Terry Cunha said in a statement the railway company “engaged with Parks Canada” about the latest grizzly cub fatality.
“We work closely with Parks Canada to manage and remove attractants along the tracks through a variety of methods in order to reduce risk of animal strikes, including a joint inspection of the corridor each spring to identify attractants coming out of winter,” Cunha said.
A camera the locomotive of a CP train captures a bear on the tracks
St. Clair said warning systems are being tested to keep bears away from trains.
“We invented and tested a warning system and showed that it caused animals to leave the rail sooner — about six-and-a-half seconds sooner than they did when the warning system wasn’t activated,” she said.
St. Clair said the loss of a single cub may not be considered a population-level effect, but it is symbolic of the broader goal to minimize mortality rates of rare species in protected areas and ensure these populations can thrive.
