Way too close of a call.
Wildlife is abundant in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Over 379 different species call the national park home, and grizzly bears are often spotted wandering throughout the beautiful landscape. More than four million people visit Banff each year to try and catch a glimpse of the variety of wild animals (like bears, lynx, and moose), and one person that recently traveled to the park in Canada almost witnessed a wrong place-wrong time accident.
Unfortunately, trains that run through Banff National Park have claimed the lives of wildlife over the years. Since 2005, 19 grizzly bears have been killed due to accidents that occur on the tracks in the national park, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This mother and her cub were almost added to that statistic, but their survival instincts kicked in just in time to get them out of harm’s way.
A social media user named Sadra Rahbar was in Banff National Park when they noticed that the mama bear and her little one were grazing on and near the tracks with a train headed towards them. The train was blasting its horn to try and scare the wild animals away, but it wasn’t working. If the grizzlies call that area home, they likely hear that horn blaring a lot, which in turn could have very well desensitized them to the sound.
The smaller bear cub standing in the tracks looked back at the train as it came barreling its way and didn’t think much of it. The mother bear, on the other hand, was busy pulling at something on the other set of tracks (the person who took this video says it was a dandelion) that were safe from the train… but still very much too close to the locomotive closing in.
It appears that the train did its best to slow down, and it was one final pull of its horn that finally got the attention of the mama grizzly and her cub. When the short blast of the horn sounded, both bears looked up and started to get out of the way. The mother took a second to try and figure out what exactly was heading their way, and once it got a good enough idea, the pair took off into the nearby woods.
Rahbar couldn’t believe the footage they captured, and shared it online with this caption:
“It was a close call, but they dodged the train! I was lucky enough to watch this beautiful mama grizzly and her cub snacking dandelions alongside the railroad in Banff National Park.”
Moved right in the nick of time.
Fortunately, that mother and her cub avoided being added to the list of other grizzlies that have met their demise at the hands of the trains that travel through Banff National Park. Clearly the train conductor was doing everything they could to avoid an accident (excessive horn blaring, throwing on the brakes), and even that almost wasn’t enough.
Something tells me this mother bear and cub will be a bit more weary of train tracks from here on out.
