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Whooping crane lookouts mulled at ND wind farm
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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.