Public hearings are set for next week in Huron and the North Dakota cities of Minot and Jamestown as the federal government wants to keep nearly 2-million acres of prime migratory bird habitat across the Daktoas and northeastern Montana from becoming farmland. The Dakota Grassland Conservation Area would be the first step in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s broader goal of conserving nearly 12-million acres of glacier-formed, water-filled depressions that wetland and grassland birds use as breeding habitat. The federal agency says that half of the native prairie that ermains in the region will be converted to other uses in 34 years if steps aren’t taken. The proposal is at the beginning of a lengthy approval process.
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