Whoopers and Wind Farms

I received a link to this article about Whooping Cranes and wind farms via email a few minutes ago.

Have to rush off to work but will look at it in depth later . . .

There's a lot about this article that troubles me. They are talking about 40,000 turbines along the U.S. section of the Whooping Crane migration corridor and it sounds like nobody is looking at taking any kind of proactive steps to protect these birds. There is no question that, as a society, we have to move in a new direction as far as our energy needs are concerned but, damn it, we absolutely have to evaluate how we are going to protect habitats and biodiversity along the way. We simply can't keep destroying things. While we don't know at this point what, if any, effect this will have on migrating Whoopers, we have to find out and take steps to protect them (and any other species our activities could potentially impact). If that means shutting down the wind farms for a few days while they pass through, then so be it. If a Whooper dies because of the activities of a power company, they should have to pay dearly.