Jasper National Park is Canada’s largest Rocky Mountain Park. It makes sense that everything is bigger and larger: More lakes, more mountains, more forest, more wildlife.

But also bigger stretches of highway and railways. More wildlife deaths. The math adds up.

But being the largest park is not an excuse. In the recent Parks Canada report, Black Bear mortalities in the Mountain National Parks: 1990-2009, the numbers show that JNP leads the mountain parks with 209 black bear deaths.

Of the total number of deaths in all mountain parks, 477, 53 per cent are highway deaths, with 37 per cent of those deaths from the busiest highway, the Trans-Canada Highway.

The Trans-Canada does not run through JNP. But while the Highway 93 North and South make up 33 per cent of those highway deaths, even then, only half of that highway is in Jasper.

So why is the toll so high in JNP? Certainly a higher black bear population exists in JNP compared to the other parks, but one only needs to take a walk down the railway tracks to see the next big problem.

I took a walk down the tracks this weekend, taking in the views down the valley behind Stone Mountain and enjoying the sunshine. But there is no doubt, despite what officials say, that that railway is covered in grain. It’s not hard to notice that where there is a larger spill of grain, there are animal droppings.

With a couple scoops over the top layer of snow you can get yourself a handful of grain – the same grain that CN always says they are cleaning up, and the same grain the animals eat just before they get hit.

Newly repaired cars or not, there is new grain being spilt. Certainly there are a lot of rail cars to be repaired and it is no doubt a long process – but thank goodness the bears spend half the year in their dens, or those numbers would be through the roof.

While CN told the Fitzhugh in the fall that they inspect their cars regularly, and Parks Canada has agreed that they are putting forth a strong effort in reducing spills, there are a few other ideas that wildlife conservationists have thrown around.

One is put up fencing – a very expensive job that would need openings for the animals to cross, and, in speaking to Parks and CN officials, likely won’t happen.

No engineer wants to hit an animal, and they have their tricks, flashing their lights at night or blowing their horn – but that is not a foolproof solution.

Another idea, an original one at its best, is to arm the engine cars with water cannons and blast any animal in front of them before they get hit. Yup, I guess that could work, too.

Regardless of what mitigation efforts are put forth, what appears to be the most effective solution is to go to the source, and stop it. Pricey, it may be, but there is no reason why trains can’t pull cars that when those brakes come on, and cars start slamming into each other, that grain needs to fall out of them.

I’m not suggesting that the railway is the only reason black bear mortalities are so high in Jasper, and in fact, they have decreased. 2009 saw six black bear deaths on the tracks, compared to nine in 2007.

I know it is easier said than done, but if those responsible for grain spills don’t get things under control, I can tell you exactly where to go if you want your fix of wildlife sightings next summer.