Sandhill Crane after collision with overhead transmission line
SAVING NATURAL NEBRASKA
Overhead transmission lines can be fatal to large birds such as Sandhill Cranes and Whooping Cranes. As we all know more than 600,000 Sandhill Cranes migrate through Central Nebraska which includes the sandhills region. Also the only wild population of endangered Whooping Cranes follows the same route. Whooping Crane conservation has been a priority for biologists for decades as the population annually hovers around 288 birds. Numbers may have slightly increased due to those conservation efforts but can change drastically from year to year.
The Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) is planning a series over overhead transmission lines stretching across the Nebraska sandhills in the path of migrating Sandhill Cranes and Whopping Cranes, the only two species of cranes in North America. Collisions with these lines can be catastrophic to these large birds threatening their safety.
Further installation of these overhead transmission lines pose an additional threat to the grasslands of the sandhills of Nebraska, the largest dessert in the northern hemisphere covering 20,000 square miles. Once these grasses have been disturbed the baron sand begins to move and it would take more than 100 years for the dunes to re-vegetate.
Whooping Crane. 5 ft tall with 7 ft wingspan
You can help protect the endangered Whooping Cranes and Sandhill Cranes as well as one of the largest ecosystems of its kind,
the Nebraska Sandhills, by contacting the NPPD board and your local representative to do a more comprehensive and thorough environmental impact study on the detrimental effects of these overhead transmission lines through the Nebraska Sandhills and in the path of migrating cranes.
