Grizzlies’ ‘Town Meetings’ on Rails Prove Fatal : Montana: Bears come for the corn spilled by trains for decades. Railroad recently finished cleanup, but ecologists say animals will return to the site for years.

Before dawn on June 12, 1989, a 1-year-old grizzly was struck by a train at Windy Point on the southern edge of Glacier National Park.

Weighing 65 pounds, hardly more than a cub, she lay paralyzed with a smashed foot and broken back when Montana state biologists found her that morning and put her to sleep. Since then, as bears continue to congregate on the tracks, six other grizzlies have been killed along Bear Autumn Creek, according to state records. Drawing them there is spilled corn, some of it fermented, spawning tales of drunken bears, according to a federal report on the spills.

“They could get a little juiced on it,” Al Christopherson, a U.S. Forest Service ranger in the Hungry Horse district, said in an interview.

Officials at Burlington Northern Railroad Inc. recently announced the cleanup of decades of spilled corn, but the bears are far from out of the woods. Government biologists say the grizzlies’ craving for the high-energy corn is so strong that they’ll continue to flock to the tracks for a decade to come.

They also say that grizzlies familiar with unnatural food will seek out other sources, and with as many as 60 bears having grown up in recent years feeding on the corn, officials worry that the bears may attack campers.

“Glacier National Park will experience bear problems from the bears at that corn spill,” predicted biologist Shawn Riley of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “What’s amazing to me is that we haven’t already had more aggressive action on the part of the bears.”

The killings at the grain-spill site come at a crucial time for the grizzlies, which number an estimated 700 to 900 in the Western United States, excluding Alaska. A steep drop in the population caused by decades of wanton killing was halted in 1975 after the federal Endangered Species Act granted the creatures protection.

A grizzly recovery plan, adopted by federal authorities in 1982, and what appears to be a big jump in births in recent years has boosted hopes among some naturalists of the species’ survival.

Some biologists, however, fear that the increase in cubs is a fluke caused by a string of abundant food years. These biologists, who fear that each death adds to the threat of extinction, contend that many more bears are needed to ensure the species’ survival within the continental United States.

Last year in Montana, 15 grizzlies, including nine females, were reported killed or removed from the wild. An unknown number are illegally killed by the “shoot, shovel and shut-up” ranchers who have not learned to coexist with the animals.

The grizzly is also losing habitat to logging, mining, road widening and the development of new ski runs and small ranches by wealthy new immigrants.

Tourism brings added pressure on the grizzly, which easily roams 100 miles or more each summer in search of food.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group of environmentalists, is championing a new approach to preserving habitat based not on artificial boundaries but on real-life ecosystems. The coalition is gearing up for a big push to protect more wilderness, and the looming battle with advocates of other land uses could rise to the level of political wrangling and resemble the current fight between loggers and environmentalists over the spotted owl.

“If we take care of the habitat, bears know how to make babies,” said biologist Charles Jonkel of Missoula, Mont., who chairs the Bear Specialist Group of the Geneva-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Corn has spilled along the tracks south of Glacier for decades, but starting in December, 1988, three trains derailed, spilling 10,000 tons of corn in 106 cars along a three-mile stretch of track.

Burlington Northern responded with what company and government officials called a herculean effort in 20-below-zero weather to clean up the mess. Contractors vacuumed up corn. An electric fence was put up to discourage bears. Even the corn-riddled rock and dirt that supports the tracks was scooped out and replaced.

“We spent millions,” said Gus Melonas, a Burlington Northern spokesman.

But there were flaws in the effort, which proved fatal to bears. Salvage crews added to the spillage by pushing over untipped cars to clear the track, according to a 1990 report by an interagency task force. They also left some corn--maybe only a carload or two, but that was enough.

“It’s not something you and I could stand out there and smell, but the bear sure can,” Christopherson said. The grizzly, he noted, has a keener sense of smell than a hound dog.

Since then, as many as 12 grizzlies have been seen at one time at the site. A 10-year-old male was killed by a train in July, 1989, and after that, three females and one male. Several more bears were killed farther away from the spill.

The last reported death came about a year ago, when an adult male was hit by a car on Highway 2 adjoining the tracks. In its stomach biologists found angelica and various grasses, fruit, rocks, dirt, ants and corn--20% corn in the colon, according to the lab report.

Within the last couple of years, the Great Bear Foundation and National Wildlife Federation sued Burlington Northern, contending the railroad has an obligation under the federal Endangered Species Act to devise a plan to protect the grizzlies along its routes. That suit is still pending.

But what may have forced the railroad’s hand was a video made by Walt Derby, a 49-year-old bear enthusiast from Missoula who taped bears roaming the tracks. “I couldn’t believe it,” Derby said. “It was as if they were having a town meeting. Trains would come by and they wouldn’t even get up.”

The environmental groups took the videotape to court, and this spring Burlington Northern hired a contractor who specializes in environmental cleanups, and pulled out hundreds more truckloads of dirt mixed with corn.

“We’re committed to this project and are continuing to monitor the situation,” Melonas said.