ROADS AND RAILS : the killing machines

Updated November 25, 2007

Roads
In the 70 km/hr zones on Yellowhead Highway 16 speed compliance by drivers is fairly good. Parks Canada puts this down to digital wildlife and speed signs, the Drivers for Wildlife education program and enforcement by the RCMP.

Unfortunately on the 230-km Icefields Parkway (Highway 93) between Jasper and Lake Louise compliance is not good. It is rare to see RCMP on this road: local drivers are aware of this and speed accordingly. This is particularly worrying as the woodland caribou - listed as a threatened species - come down to the road in winter and ten of them have been killed there since 1994.

On Highway 16 some large transport trucks still barrel through the park at night at unacceptable speeds and do much of the killing. The answer to that may be radar cameras but the Alberta government is stubbornly refusing to allow their use on highways.

We still need a solution to the issue of salt in the de-icing material used on the roads. This contributes to many animals being drawn to their deaths on the highway each year. Parks funding has been cut so drastically that there is a marked reluctance to use the liquid magnesium chloride that is used in some other provinces and northern US states.

Tests are now taking place on the aversive conditioner - lithium chloride - to dissuade wildlife from licking the salt. The Icefields Parkway and the Maligne road will be top priority for that study because of the caribou. If successful there, it could also be the answer for the Moberly Bridge and Disaster Point areas of the Yellowhead Highway where so many bighorn sheep are killed. Unfortunately recent winters have not seen sufficient snow on the road to make tracking decisive enough for the study so several more winters may be needed before conclusions are reached.

CN Rail:
Two years ago CN Rail purchased a vacuum truck for their rail line in the park to clean up the wheat, canola and peas - then they took it away again to use in other locations - so cleanup in the park is constantly delayed. The grains and seeds falling from leaking hooper cars attract hundreds of animals to the tracks. Just this past summer nine black bears were killed by the trains: the berry crop was poor in the park and grain on the tracks was irresistible. Some ungulates eat so much of the grain that they can't digest it and die of septic shock.

Because some of the leaking cars arrive in Vancouver with empty compartments, an estimated loss of $10 million in grain seems to have finally prompted the federal government to take action. It has entered into an agreement with CN and Canadian Pacific that while the cars are leased by the government to those companies at no cost the approximately 12,000 cars will be inspected, refurbished and monitored by the companies to ensure that the fleet will be in good operating condition and older cars will be taken out of service.

While there may be an improvement with the grain leakages, another threat looms on the horizon. In September the new $170 million container terminal opened at Prince Rupert in British Columbia and this could see a big increase in freight trains travelling from Edmonton through the park to the west coast port to connect with Asian shipping. Already there are more than 40 trains each day through Jasper - how many more will this bring?

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