Banff grizzly bears killed by train

CALGARY — Two young grizzlies may have been walking on train tracks for sturdy footing in a boggy area when a train struck and killed them, a Parks Canada wildlife specialist said.

In the mountain darkness, the engineer likely couldn’t see the members of Banff National Park’s beloved and threatened species, of which only about 60 are believed to exist.

The two yearlings were struck and killed around 9 p.m. Friday west of Banff town-site, marking the 12th and 13th grizzlies to be killed by trains in the national park since 2000.

It comes after a busy first summer of a five-year Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific joint project to research ways of curbing the grizzlies’ top killer — the 25 to 35 trains that muscle through the national park daily. Parks and train staff alike had been pleased that Banff’s grizzlies seemed headed for their first year in several without a single death by locomotive.

“We were kind of celebrating the success of good, on- the-ground research and then, unfortunately, this incident occurred,” CP spokeswoman Breanne Feigel said Monday.

The work could eventually lead to more specific protections in certain high-risk areas, said Steve Michel, who specializes in human-wildlife conflicts with Parks Canada.

Michel said officials take some solace in the fact the yearlings’ mother, No. 130, survived and should be able to have future offspring. No. 130 was one of 11 Banff grizzlies fitted with a GPS collar.