"I can hardly imagine what the government is thinking. Whooping cranes are the rarest of all the cranes, the rarest of American birds," said Paul Johnsgard, author of several books on the cranes and professor emeritus of ornithology at the University of Nebraska.

Plans to build a wind farm on Lewis have been scrapped over fears golden eagles could be could be killed by turbine blades.

Proposals to build Europe's largest onshore windfarm in the Shetland Islands at a cost of £800 million could be scaled back, according to developer Viking Energy, writes Will Nichols. The limited company originally presented plans for the 150 turbine, 540MW project to the Shetland Islands council this summer. However, last week, a spokesman for Viking Energy told NewEnergyFocus.com that the company is to submit an addendum to its plans early in the new year in a response to concerns flagged up during consultation, including over bird life and landscape.

The first wind-powered electric generation project in Virginia will be permitted on the remote ridges of Highland County, the State Corporation Commission said Thursday. The commission granted conditional approval to Highland New Wind Development's $60 million proposal to place 19 turbines more than 400 feet tall on a 4,400-foot ridge near the West Virginia border. The company must spend up to $150,000 a year to monitor and mitigate harm to birds and bats that could be caused by the whirling turbine blades, the SCC said. Environmentalists have contended many endangered species would be threatened by the project, and an SCC hearing examiner concluded that the turbines were a "significant risk" to bats and "a lesser risk" to birds.

In letters to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) President George Fenwick identified key shortcomings in recent federal plans to address the impacts of wind farms on birds. Fenwick challenged the government's plan to suggest voluntary guidelines for wind developers rather than imposing mandatory regulations, saying this would fail to result in industry compliance.

As the Victor Valley College board of trustees gears up to consider erecting a 314-foot wind turbine, the project may face some unlikely opponents: birds and bats living in the nearby Mojave River bottom. ...A new study on a northern California wind farm at Altamont Pass shows that efforts have failed to protect birds from wind turbine blades which some environmentalists have dubbed "bird blenders," according to Environment & Climate News.