Wind farms could drive bird species to extinction: conservationists

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — More than 60 years after it was pushed to the edge of extinction, one of North America's rarest birds, the whooping crane, faces new danger from environmentally-friendly wind farms, conservationists warned.

"Companies want to put their farms where the best wind is, and that overlaps with the migration corridor of the whooping crane," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, told AFP.

"There are areas where we know large numbers of whooping crane stop (during migration) and we would like wind companies to avoid those areas, with a good buffer zone," Stehn said on the eve of what is expected to be the biggest ever business to government conference in the United States on renewable energy.

The three-day...