On August 30, 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) published a Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to work with partners to begin development of the Midwest Wind Energy Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP) for all or parts of the eight states in the Service's Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin). The planning partners include state conservation agencies from the eight states that will be covered by the Multi-species HCP as well as The Conservation Fund and the American Wind Energy Association. The American Wind Energy Association represents a consortium of wind energy companies. The Service is requesting information and comment concerning the planning process, permitting approach, biological aspects of the interaction of wind facilities and species, scientific data that may help inform the HCP or monitoring of impacts, and any other information that interested parties would like to offer. Comments may be mailed to: Regional Director, Attn: Rick Amidon, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services, 5600 American Blvd. West, Suite 990, Bloomington, MN 55437-1458; faxed to: 612/713-5292 (Attn: Rick Amidon); or E-mailed to: [log in to unmask] Deadline for receiving comments is October 1. More information on this habitat conservation plan can be found at www.fws.gov/midwest/endangered Vicci Weeks ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]