Just when you think things couldn't get any weirder, now we learn that Montana grizzly bears are being hit by trains. 

Because they're drunk. Yes, really.

Getting “drunk” on fermented grain has killed dozens of grizzly bears along a treacherous stretch of rail line near Glacier National Park, Montana.

Since 1980, 63 bears have been killed along a stretch of rail line that goes over Marias Pass and the Great Bear Wilderness, according to reports from state and federal wildlife agencies. The worst year on record was 2019, when eight grizzlies were killed by trains, and three have been killed so far this year.

Many of them likely died during a “drunken attempt” to outrun the trains, a Wyoming bear expert said.

Grain spilled from railcars along the tracks can be a tempting treat for bears, retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody told Cowboy State Daily.

With enough moisture from snow and rain, “the spilled grain actually ferments in place and becomes a de facto brewery,” he said.

This is of course a sad state of affairs, as griz are magnificent animals and it's a shame to see them hit by trains, drunk or not. But railroad hopper cars will spill grain; when I was a young man back in Iowa, we used to hunt pheasants along the railroad tracks for this very reason. It's hard to imagine, though, something the size of a grizzly being intoxicated by something that probably carries less alcohol than an equivalent value of cheap beer. How much would it take? Bears, especially in fall, can eat a lot as they are packing on pounds for their over-winter snooze.

It does indeed seem, though, that the grain is the culprit in the bears' impairment:

Bears that are attracted to the fermented grain “might fall asleep right on site if they get drunk first. They can, and have, fallen asleep in a drunken stupor right on the tracks,” Neal said.

“Other times they loiter on the tracks until a train approaches, at high speed, then drunkenly attempt to outrun the train — no can do — and are smashed,” he added.

Bears aren't the only animals indulging in intoxicants. As we have seen recently, raccoons in Germany are stealing beer (one has to appreciate the taste of these German trash pandas in only stealing the finest German lagers and pilseners), and we have learned that sheep in Greece are not averse to tying one on.

Don't even get me started on politicians.

Naturally, it would be best for the Montana fish & game folks to keep these bears as fur from the train tracks and their enticing fermented grain crops as possible, even if that priority might seem like it's panda-ing to the environmental cabal. There is probably some statute in Montana that allows them to spend time preventing these accidents; it's probably just a matter of finding the right claws. Perhaps they could appoint some game rangers to be beartenders. Let's hope they find a way because the population probably can't bear too many such losses.

Fortunately, the problem doesn't seem to surface here in Alaska, where we have far and away the most bears of both the black and grizzly variety of any state. We have good populations of both black and grizzly bears hereabouts along the Susitna, and while chances for them to intoxicate themselves are few, I'm reliably informed that one might on rare occasions hear a drunken grizzly sing. 

I'm told they have a fine bearitone.