Global News - February 2008
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Wind farms may threaten whooping cranes
Fri 29 February 2008 13:35 UK — North America,Birds
Endangered whooping cranes may be threatened by the building of wind turbines along their US migration corridor, an expert has warned.
The rare birds migrate every autumn from Canada to Texas, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service told the Associated Press that as many as 40,000 turbines could now be built along their flight route.
As a result, the agency has warned that the cranes face a dual threat - from flying into the turbines and also from the loss of their habitat due to the wind farms' construction.
"Basically you can overlay the strongest, best areas for wind turbine development with the whooping crane migration corridor," the service's whopping crane co-ordinator, Tom Stehn, told the Associated Press.
"Even if they avoid killing the cranes, the wind farms would be taking hundreds of square miles of migration stopover habitat away from the cranes."
The whooping crane's population had fallen as low as 15 in 1941, though conservation efforts have now boosted its numbers to more than 250 birds.
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