12 October 2006
More Action, Fewer Excuses Needed on Grain
Calgary Alberta - Defenders of Wildlife director Jim Pissot
and his supporters - stuffed bear included - took their concerns about the ongoing issue of grain spilled on CP Rails track to downtown
Calgary this week, staging a media event guaranteed to garner a few minutes on regional newscasts.
Good on him. While many in the Bow Valley may be tired of seeing Mr. Pissot's seemingly constant efforts to make the news, his is a
message that shouldn't go away.
This summer, Mr. Pissot garnered a few more headlines when he attempted to hand out information pamphlets aboard CP's steam train the
Empress while it was on its own PR journey, highlighting the corporation's support of the Food for Learning program.
What's good for the goose...
CP Rail makes a lot of money running its freight trains through the Bow Valley. Unfortunately, it also kills animals in the process,
from bears that follow the seemingly never-ending seepage of grain from its cars to elk that entangle themselves in wire
left lying for two years - coincidentally, just as a plan of action for its removal was being formulated.
The company's chief spokesman, Ed Greenberg, faithfully adheres to a script that says the problem isn't entirely the railway. The growth
and development in the Bow Valley has contributed to the ongoing deaths of bears, deer, elk, coyotes and other creatures.
He's right, of course. But it would be so nice to hear him acknowledge, just once, that while the Bow Valley has grown, so too, has the
railroad.
The railway has run through the Bow Valley for 100 years. In fact, the railway and the surveying that preceded it is the very foundation
of the European settlement of the Bow Valley. While the wooden shacks that once housed the miners and outfitters have given way to
thousands of condos and houses, so too, have the pokey old steam trains given way to bigger, faster, far more frequent trains moving
through the area.
Mr. Greenberg also invariably points to the daily vacuum truck that rides the rails through the Valley, but apparently it's not working
as it should, and we would like CP to acknowledge that.
We have seen first-hand the piles of grain at Gap siding, dumped by the vacuum truck rather than deposited into the
so-called bear-proof bins (which occasionally are found without lids). We have seen the ribbon of grain
snaking off into the horizon between those two ribbons of steel. We have come upon bear scat loaded with undigested grain.
In the last two years, nine grizzlies and four black bears have died on the CPR tracks in the Canadian Rockies. Whenever it happens, Mr.
Greenberg points to those bears that have also died at the hands of wardens or conservation officers. Attempting to deflect the
attention and shift the finger of blame is hardly productive.
We are all responsible, Mr. Greenberg, but while taxpayers are paying Parks to build, repair and extend the wildlife fences along the
highway, while we pay for and use bear-proof garbage bins in all of our neighbourhoods, while we pay for education programs
and Karelian dog programs and those very wardens and conservation officers who spend their summers protecting the bears... we'd like to
see a little more effort on CP's part.
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