Federal regulators may keep biologists
watching for whooping cranes near a North Dakota wind farm, even
though the birds haven't been seen in the area for two years.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative has placed observers at the
facility south of Minot since 2010. Migrating whooping cranes
normally pass through in the spring and fall.
Basin is required to shut down its turbines if a whooping crane
was spotted within a mile of the wind farm.
Basin spokesman Daryl Hill says biologists have never seen a
whooping crane in the North Dakota area.
But Hill says turbines had to be turned off this spring at the
company's wind farm in southeast South Dakota after a pair of the
big birds were spotted.