"Not much has been done at all."

November 6, 2023 7:27 AM

Drunk Grizzlies Keep Getting Hit By Trains in Montana (Cowboy State Daily)
posted by box (19 comments total)

The idea of drunk grizzlies is both terrifying and hilarious but in the end, that story is just sad.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:49 AM on November 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

This isn't funny at all. :(
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:05 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

The railroad basically trying to wait out the species being delisted so they don't have to do anything to protect them is the "nobody cares about Covid anymore" of wildlife protection.
posted by fedward at 8:09 AM on November 6, 2023 [10 favorites]

It sounds like they could avoid the problem by not overloading the grain cars, but that would lead to less profit. ugh.
posted by pangolin party at 8:20 AM on November 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

It seems like investing in a series of cameras along the tracks looking for track blockages of any sort (bears or otherwise) would be an obvious route to reduce this issue (and potentially other issues ... like derailments caused by something blocking the tracks). But we all know the rail companies would never be proactive about something like that.
posted by jferg at 8:25 AM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I wonder if drunk grizzlies are "fun drunks", like if they're wasted they're your best friend and just want hugs and will sing whatever karaoke song you pick even if they don't know the words and are all like "YEAH I'LL HELP YOU MOVE NEXT WEEKEND, YOU'VE DONE SO MUCH FOR ME I OWE YOU ONE BUDDY" and are ready to go ask that chick over there if she's single so you can go talk to her.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:26 AM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

My friend who got her Env. Science degree at University of Montana tells me that grain spills are relatively common, and in Washington State they use Karelian Bear Dogs to keep bears away from tracks.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:31 AM on November 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

Why are the trains shedding so much grain? If their job is to transport grain, shouldn't keeping the grain on the train be a priority?
posted by mittens at 8:41 AM on November 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

If their job is to transport grain, shouldn't keeping the grain on the train be a priority

If they guys who load cars are paid by how much they load, they don't care if they overload; if they're the guy who makes sure as much material makes it to the end point as possible they don't care if some is lost as long as the maximum that arrives is met (i.e. don't underload cars), if you're the guy who has to pay for a 48th grain car instead of just adding 1/48th of a load to the other 47 cars you're saving money, etc., etc. Capitalism isn't about moving grain safely and security, it's each guy doing 110% regarding his own job expectations to get paid.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:14 AM on November 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

Capitalism kills drunk bears. Whee.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:17 AM on November 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm both terrified and elated to learn there is something called the Great Bear Wilderness! Hiking seems so much easier in my area.

As an idea, maybe fine BNSF several million per dead bear. Bet they'd find a solution real quick.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:52 AM on November 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

How much damp grain does a 500 pound grizzly need to eat to get drunk? How big are these piles of grain? After wondering this, I'm a little skeptical of this hypothesis, TBH. There's not actually any details on the drunk part. Trains kill people who are sober too, and napping in a sunny spot on railroad tracks probably feels fine if you're a bear.

Googling found this Atlas Obscura article that basically argues "stories that bears get drunk on fermented apples is a silly myth." As they point out wild fermentation in the fruit context is like 1% ABV and no one has actually studied this.

This story talks about drunken bears going wild after a corn spill from trains, but it was multiple derailments that spilled 20 million pounds of corn. Seems more credible! But even they actually hedge their bets: The bears may not have been drunk, and accidents near tracks can also be caused because bears are looking for food--either spillage or other carcasses--so are just near the tracks anyway.

(Not that this means bears aren't getting killed. Back of the envelope it seems like 1% of grizzlies in this area will die from a train accident, which is horrible.)
posted by mark k at 10:19 AM on November 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

China keeps bears in cages to harvest bile, so evil capitalists aren’t to blame for everything on the planet.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:53 AM on November 6, 2023

(Eh, China is arguably a more capitalist than not economy at this point. Not that nothing bad ever happened back when they were still fully communist, mind. But just a quibble with the specific example.)
posted by eviemath at 10:55 AM on November 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

I also have real doubts that drunkenness is a significant factor. We've been dealing with this same problem in Canada for decades and I'm fairly familiar with the issue. I've never heard of alcohol being a factor from any reliable source.

It seems unlikely that a pile of grain is going to spontaneously ferment to such a degree that there is enough alcohol in it that it would get a large mammal drunk. You'd need just the right conditions as far as temperature and moisture to get it to sprout, then dry out enough to stop growing, then wet it to start fermenting. Somehow enough alcohol would then have to absorb into the grain that a bear eating it would get drunk. There is a reason we don't make beer by just putting a pile of grain outside.

Also, there's pretty good evidence that there are three factors bringing bears onto the tracks: other animals being killed by trains and then bears eating them, clearing trees along the rails resulting in a lot of berries growing and attracting bears, and spilled grain.

In our area, a recent study showed 3 grizzly deaths due to trains over 160 animal-years, so roughly 2% of local grizzlies died on the rails each year.
posted by ssg at 2:48 PM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

Fundamentally, the grain is a solvable design problem. Grain is carried in cars with spouts on the bottom to unload it. The design of those spouts is such that they sometimes don't close fully or sometimes work themselves open as the train travels. I don't know the details, but it does not seem like it would be that difficult to design the mechanism that closes the spouts to lock in place positively and clearly indicate when it is not locked in place. Obviously, this would cost money though.

It's not an overloading problem, generally, though sometimes grain is also spilled on top of the cars (I'd imagine most of that falls off fairly soon though).
posted by ssg at 2:56 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Why are the trains shedding so much grain? If their job is to transport grain, shouldn't keeping the grain on the train be a priority?

I grew up in coal country, and know people who stocked their winter stove supplies by going for a walk along the train tracks

So it's kind of like how when they drill for oil they just spill that crap all over the place

It's a natural resource, for the companies it's basically free money
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:49 PM on November 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think the main communist vs capitalist example is probably Soviet whaling during the 70s.

Mass killing for no reason? The paradox of Soviet whaling.

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In only 30 years of intensive whaling (about 1948 to 1975) the Soviet Union (USSR) had not only almost destroyed the humpback whale population around NZ and Australia, but had caught about 370,000 whales in total, mainly in the Southern Ocean. At least 180,000 of those catches were illegal.

Why did the USSR kill so many whales, even though the country had comparatively little use for their products?

The devil lies in the detail of the economic system of the USSR. Being a worker in the Soviet whaling fleet came with many privileges: Salaries were among the highest paid in any industry, due mainly to large performance bonuses. Before the start of every whaling season, the government set monthly and yearly production targets (as they did for every Soviet industry). In whaling this determined the number of whales to be caught. Production targets had to be met. If targets were not met, everyone involved expected punishment. Supervisors reported on the performance of their subordinates and if output was low, employees lost their jobs. On the other hand, if the fleets met or even exceeded the target, the government rewarded employees with generous bonuses. Motivation to meet or even exceed the production target was naturally high. The production output of the previous whaling season often set the target for the upcoming year. Yearly targets inevitably kept increasing at a greater rate. In addition, workers in the whaling industry were well-regarded in the public eye with large celebrations at their home port on their return to the USSR. Newspapers honoured the whaling crews like heroes.

​Soviet whaling was a highly subsidized industry and it quickly developed into a massive financial loss for the country. As with any other industry in the USSR, whaling was not primarily meant to provide communal profit but to show proof of the efficiency and superiority of the communist system. In the case of whaling, proof was provided by being able to kill more whales than any other nation in a relatively short time.

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Say what you like about capitalism, but the market price signalling mechanism is absolutely critical, and the areas where it fails is where the price signal isn't strong enough - eg over consumption of fossil fuels due to environmental damage not being sufficiently priced in using carbon taxes or other tariffs.
posted by xdvesper at 3:05 AM on November 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Googling found this Atlas Obscura article that basically argues "stories that bears get drunk on fermented apples is a silly myth." As they point out wild fermentation in the fruit context is like 1% ABV and no one has actually studied this.

I've seen bears at least acting what in a human would be tipsy after eating fallen fruit. While each apple may have a relatively low volume of alcohol pre hibernation pears eat a lot. Like several 5 gallon buckets of windfalls in a single night a lot.

And bears are smart enough and driven enough to seek intoxicants on their own merits regardless of any nutritional benefits. See for example bears huffing gas.

The train operator could eliminate the risk posed by spilled grain by running a track vacuum over the route as need but if course that won't be done unless forced because it costs money.
posted by Mitheral at 5:48 AM on November 20, 2023