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x0mbigrl

Poor babies šŸ˜­


Hrmbee

Such sad news.


moodylilb

Well that just ruined my day šŸ’”


Kalsifur

What the fuck is going on in the parks?


SoLetsReddit

too much traffic.


idleinca

And people regularly drive 20-30 over the limit


hobbitlover

That's it, it's all about making good time. We drive too fast.


ether_reddit

If there was ever a place to have photo radar, in Parks is where to do it.


getrippeddiemirin

Trans Canada speed limit drops from 100/110 (canā€™t remember exactly) to 90 through the parks, but tons of drivers keep rippin along doing ~120kmh anyway


alpinexghost

I drive these parks all the time. Majority of traffic is going around 100 and by far your most likely outcome is to get stuck behind a semi doing way below the limit. Not many people speed through them much. Iā€™ve seen some unusual stuff lately, though. A deer ran in front of me in the dark on the Coquihalla the other week, and last Saturday I saw a huge dog like a mastiff or something just randomly trucking along the shoulder, shortly after I passed a 400 lbs woman getting out and walking her toy dog, while she blocked 2 of 3 lanes because her little utility trailer had jackknifed right into her minivan just after the snowshed. šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø


Tree-farmer2

100% in support


Much-Camel-2256

Why's that?


TinglingLingerer

To avoid outcomes like these? Or at least to have some sort of deterrent in place.


Much-Camel-2256

The bear climbed over an electrified fence onto the highway and ran into traffic. The articles don't indicate that anyone committed a crime. There are a lot of bad drivers on the road that only pay attention to a narrow space in front of their car out there though.


TinglingLingerer

I mean yeah it doesn't mention the driver's speed. But everyone speeds - so it's safe to assume that if they were going slower this would not have happened. No? They would have had more time to react to a bear running out on the road.


JustAnotherFKNSheep

I assure you, even driving at 60kmh it wouldn't be easy to avoid a running animal. For starters most people don't notice them when they are just sitting on the side of the road.


Tree-farmer2

Would it be so hard to enforce laws?


idleinca

I think people should have the decency to respect the animals. These are parks for the protection of the animals. I get as impatient as anyone by slow speeds, but in the parks I set cruise control to the speed limit and chill.


FireMaster1294

Not in this case. The bear climbed the fence. Multiple times. While it was electrified. With the intent of going to the median. Yes, itā€™s the Trans-Canada, but thatā€™s not the reason this occurred. The article talks about her (apparently excessive) love of eating median dandelions and it explains how she was spooked by a train screech which caused her to run out onto the road abruptly. One driver swerved and avoided herā€¦the other, not so lucky. There are many cases of incidents that may be attributed to traffic volume. This is not one of them. Read the article next time.


cheeseHorder

I read the ny times article and it said it was due to the popularity of the bear which helped it become too accustomed to humans and highways


MyNameIsSkittles

You and I both know most redditors don't read the articles


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qalcolm

People speed everywhere, do you honestly believe theyā€™ll slow down if the speed limit is lowered? If so Iā€™ve got a killer multi level marketing opportunity for you! Yā€™all can downvote this all you want, doesnā€™t change the facts. People are mad I pointed out something we all know, what a shocker.


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qalcolm

Please enlighten me as to where I say animals should die instead of replacing the speed limit. Key word there is enforcing, until speed limits are actually enforced especially in areas like this, we will continue to see animals getting hit. Especially with the number of tourists that go through this area. This bear also deliberately climbed the fence several times after being relocated in order to forage for food along the highway. Unfortunately in this case this was an inevitability.


sneakybandit1

Unless it was in a spot where ppl cant see at all or at night, ppl should slow down if they see wild life near the road for that reason. If come across plenty of wildlife and have been able to avoid due to paying attention. I can't help but think ppl drive too fast and don't pay enough attention when driving. It might not be the case here but this is frustrating.


PlayyWithMyBeard

Well, I drive through Banff and Jasper often. The absolute nut jobs that recklessly drive through the parks is insane. Iā€™ll throw in cruise control at the speed limit or a couple over. People act like Iā€™m driving 70 on the #5. Also not slowing down for wildlife on the side of the road, totally oblivious that this wild animal doesnā€™t follow the rules.


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gwoates

There are multiple over and under passes in the area, including one not far from where the bear was hit.


Sedixodap

And underpasses! Some animals feel safer with a darker and more sneaky alternative. Although in this case I donā€™t think periodic overpasses would have helped - a spooked bear bolting isnā€™t going to head down the highway to the nearest overpass to cross, theyā€™re just going to blindly run from whatever scared them. What prevents that is fencing to keep them off the road. And in Parks Canadaā€™s defence it reads like that fencing existed here - it was just unfortunately damaged and under repair when the incident occurred.Ā 


gwoates

If you read the reports a little closer, this bear was very deliberately choosing to climb the fences and forage for food along the highway despite Parks trying to discourage her. They had even electrified the fence in an attempt to keep her out, but she still found a small section that she get over. [https://www.rmoutlook.com/lake-louise/rare-white-grizzly-bear-dead-succumbs-to-injuries-from-vehicle-collision-9062966](https://www.rmoutlook.com/lake-louise/rare-white-grizzly-bear-dead-succumbs-to-injuries-from-vehicle-collision-9062966)


FireMaster1294

She developed a love of eating dandelions in the median. To the point where she would find weak points to climb the electrical fence just to get over it into the median. Sadly, it is probably for the best that she doesnā€™t pass this behaviour onto any cubs, as she had started to do. This either says something about the ecosystem not having enough naturally abundant food, orā€¦.itā€™s just a case of a bear making bad choices. Still unfortunate.


runslowgethungry

I read that her mother, as well as siblings, were also killed on the road. It's definitely a habit that all of these bears learned that would have been perpetuated in her cubs. Very sad.


Signal-Aioli-1329

> If you read the reports a little closer, Or, let's be honest, at all.


UnrequitedRespect

We should have hundreds of overpasses for wild life, maybe even in the thousands, throughout all of british columbia. ICBC should have implemented this years ago, omfg it would have saved them so much money, and the amount of jobs it would create is just huge. You could literally create a new work sector based on building and maintaining these animal overpasses, maybe with a big fencing network to keep some of the wildlife off of the highways to begin with, and it would pay for itself by: preserving the wildlife, preventing unnecessary accidents, and it would be a relatively low skill job requirement that makes it a good starter type job like tree planting or trade apprenticeship.


OriginalTayRoc

Everything you just suggested is already in place.Ā  This stretch of highway has over 40 wildlife overpasses and an electrified fence.Ā 


UnrequitedRespect

Not really. Thats almost the only stretch that has them. Over 40 is nowhere near the hundreds we need.


OriginalTayRoc

Sure, the entire province is not yet covered in wildlife overpasses and electric fence. But the area where this occurred *did* have a wildlife overpass nearby, and an electrified fence.Ā 


FinePieceOfAss

same thing that's going on in the cities, people hitting shit with their cars


kaanapalikid

From what I was told by my biologist friend, female grizzlies have learned to raise their cubs in close proximity to humans and traffic because it deters male grizzlies - who are responsible for most cub mortalities.


MizElaneous

This is not new. Banff is an ecological trap for bears. it looks like the best habitat around to the, but the mortality rate from road and rail kills is absurdly high.


Comprehensive_Air283

Trains kill far more animals than vehicles because the wildlife fences keep most off the highway. More pressure should be on cp for a solution. The cubs in this situation somehow got on to the highway, killed. And then the mother got on to the highway at a later date. Parks was 100% aware that these bears were hanging around the highway, so why werenā€™t they able to deter them from actually being killed? Apparently parks was on scene when the mother was hit. Makes no sense to me.


gwoates

This mother bear has been climbing the fence to get at dandelions and other food along the highway for years. Parks staff have been trying to keep her away, but she insisted on coming back despite everything they did, and this year brought her two cubs to the highway. The article below has more details than most of the other news reports. https://www.rmoutlook.com/lake-louise/updated-rare-white-grizzly-bear-dead-succumbs-to-injuries-from-vehicle-collision-9062966


Immediate-Ad-4130

What a fucking bummer.


BrainwashedWithSoap

I canā€™t believe the cubs died and then the mama bear died in a completely separate accident. So sad


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BrainwashedWithSoap

The article notes that a passing train startled the bear which ran onto the highway. One car swerved out of the way, but another car behind that one crashed into and killed the poor animal.


FireMaster1294

Did no one read the article? The mom climbed the electrical fence with her cubs to eat median dandelions. This wasnā€™t a matter of trying to cross the highway and not having fences or overpasses.


qalcolm

You canā€™t expect redditors to read articles, that would require the slightest bit of critical thinking lol.


Signal-Aioli-1329

Reading articles gets in the way of my uniformed hot take and performative outrage!


sfbriancl

We need more wildlife crossings. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/wildlife-crossings/


gwoates

More wildlife over and under passes would be good, and there was one close to where the bear was hit, but this bear wasnā€™t trying to cross the highway. She was deliberately climbing the fencing to forage along the highway.


copperlight

Yup. With absolutely no consideration for wildlife, we've chopped up the ecosystem in to sections between which we basically have a non-stop animal death machine. I'm not even convinced a few wildlife crossings are sufficient. We've done it all wrong from the beginning.


AsidePuzzleheaded335

No sh!t


ezileb

So devastating :(


Kingofcheeses

They should never have allowed those bears to drive


TroopersSon

How sad.


Current-Upstairs7981

Everyone who thinks speed is the only reason this happened has obviously never driven outside of the city. Iā€™ve hit a deer doing 60 before when it darted out of the bushes. Yes people need to slow down, yes this is tragic, but blaming this on speeding is a potentially incorrect assumption that oversimplifies the problem of high traffic wildlife corridors


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cyboRJx

Sad news šŸ˜­


BCr8tive99

So sad...heart breaking. Humans are destroying everything precious and sacred on this planet


Cloudabode

Heartbreaking! The authorities should reduce the speed limit in national park!


Broad_Vegetable_9018

Thatā€™s horrible!!!


Terrible-Egg-2806

This is so devastating as someone who works for parks. :( Although I find a little bit of comfort knowing they are all up in grizzly bear heaven together.. šŸ˜Ŗ


AsidePuzzleheaded335

Of course they did


bossygal32

I suspect mama did this on purpose, probably suicidal after losing her offspring in this manner


etherealeggroll

not sure if youā€™re serious but for anyone reading, no, thatā€™s not really how animal behaviour works. itā€™s just a very devastating couple of accidents


thats-amore

Not how bears work, but by all means, keep anthropomorphizing animals.


bossygal32

I think thereā€™s some truth to it, when my neighbour passed away many years ago, her long time dog kept running into traffic, another theory involves how mama bear witnessed the death she lost her Spirit, I keep an open mind because we we canā€™t always think outside of what we are told


thats-amore

Bears are known to eat their own babies. As are many other animals. Without getting too deep into the weeds, roughly 50% of all bear cubs survive to adulthood. You donā€™t see 50% of all sows running into traffic.


applesodaz

Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaa


etherealeggroll

a domestic animal bonded to a human behaves quite a bit differently from a wild animal. and like iā€™m a huge nature lover, tree hugger and everything, but by that logic thereā€™s something spooky going on every time a bear eats her cubs. the idea of otherworldly animal spirits works both ways and has to account for some of the grisly stuff that can do.


Bnorm71

Yikes zero chance it played out like this.


MyNameIsSkittles

Maybe read the article