BAD NEWS FOR BEARS

I've just learned that my cousin Flossie died recently in the ongoing misadventure called "Trains vs Bears."  She's the 13th Grizzley Bear to have been run over by a train during the last 12 years in Canada's Banff National Park. Two more Bears have been killed on the Banff highways this year.

Not a good year for us Bears.

Flossie's two kids are apparently doing fairly well since her death, so that is one piece of good news. Lots of cubs have died of starvation when their moms were killed.

The other piece of Bad News is that the Bear population in the Park is down to about 60. Even worse, the Alberta Government (Alberta's the province in which the park is located) says there are only 691 Bears left in the whole province. That's down from 1,000 a decade ago.

Yeah, the family is hitting hard times. Worse than a stock market crash.

The naturalists who keep track of these things say the loss of even one female Bear of reproductive age is a huge blow to the overall health of the ecosystem in that part of the Rocky Mountains.

Parks Canada (the Federal government agency) is teaming up with the Canadian Pacific Railway (the other side in "Trains vs Bears") in an effort to reduce the number of deaths. Last year the Federal government and the railway committed $1 million each over five years, to find a solution. In "Trains vs Bears," the Bears always lose. Always.

Some 50 Bear "specialists" and transportation scientists from all across North America are now committed to the project. They'll be meeting in Banff next month to work on the situation. As far as I know, no Bears were invited to participate.

As far as I'm concerned, fixing the problem cannot come a day too soon. There aren't many of us left.