Conservation groups sued railroad company over prolonged delays in finalizing a plan to reduce grizzly bear deaths caused by trains operating in key habitats for the threatened species in Montana and Idaho.

Two conservation groups sued railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC on Thursday, December 14, 2023, in the District Court for the District of Montana Missoula over delays in finalizing a plan to reduce grizzly bear deaths from trains. 

The groups, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians, both nonprofits aimed to protect native species and their habitats in the western United States, claim that the railroad company violates the Endangered Species Act by operating trains that harm the threatened grizzly bears in Montana and Idaho. This negligence concerning the grizzly bears has persisted as a result of the company's failed attempts at implementing a habitat/animal conservation plan and obtaining an incidental take permit. Acquiring such things would allow the company to harm a certain number of protected animals in exchange for animal and habitat conservation efforts.

BNSF’s failed attempts began in 2004 when they first started the process of drafting a plan and getting an incidental take permit. This drafting process continued into 2020 and then into 2023, with the group finally submitting its final plan last month. A decision on their plan, which includes a seven-year permit allowing BNSF to kill an average of 2.5 grizzly bears per year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is expected to have a decision early next year, agency spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak said. 

The submission of their plan, however, has done little to ease the tension between the contending groups with the Plaintiffs arguing this effort does not make up for the lost grizzly bears. As maintained in their complaint, from 2008 to 2018, “trains operating on BNSF railways killed or contributed to the deaths of approximately 52 grizzly bears” and in “2019, eight grizzly bears from the NCDE grizzly bear recovery Zone” were similarly killed. These casualties continued into 2023 with three deaths being reported. A majority of these deaths occurred in the Northern Continental Divide grizzly bear recovery zone in north-central Montana, an area of land meant to aid in the recovery of the grizzly bear population, which in 1975, was threatened with extinction under the ESA. The track's permanent location in this area, which is home to Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and over 1,000 grizzly bears makes this issue dire, as maintained by the Plaintiffs. 

Adding to this is Sarah McMillan, Wildlife and Wildlands Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center in Missoula, who commented, “We are extremely disappointed that, after all these years, BNSF has refused to change its business practices to prevent the unnecessary deaths of Montana’s iconic grizzlies, resulting in the tragic deaths of three bears just this fall,” to ABC News. She further expressed the group's worry, reinstating that “When a company chooses to operate in the epicenter of key habitat for a threatened species,” she continued, “it must take some responsibility to adapt practices to minimize its impacts on these animals.”

Contrary to this, BNSF Railway assures that even though they are taking measures to prevent grizzly bear deaths even though they lack a permit and a conservation place.