Conservation efforts on Alabama’s Gulf Coast have taken another major step forward with the protection of additional land on the Fort Morgan Peninsula. Thanks to a donation from the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) will permanently preserve 13 ecologically sensitive lots, safeguarding critical habitats from future development.

The newly protected properties, part of a broader strategy to conserve Alabama’s barrier islands and coastal ecosystems, will be managed by Alabama State Parks alongside other recent acquisitions. Officials say these efforts not only protect species like the endangered Alabama beach mouse but also ensure that migratory birds and native wildlife continue to find refuge along the coast.

ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship said the donation from the Trust continues the effort to conserve critical habitat for a variety of animal species.

“We had the acquisition of the Gulf Highlands property back in 2018,” Commissioner Blankenship said. “This past year, we acquired the Beach Club West property that was adjacent to Gulf Highlands, so now we have almost the whole undeveloped property of more than 100 acres between the Beach Club West and the Plantation Condominiums down at Fort Morgan.”

Commissioner Blankenship said the forward-thinking action of the Trust made the recent donation possible.

“Some of these properties had been acquired by the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust decades ago,” he said. “The Trust contacted us last fall and wanted to transfer those lots to the Department to include in our management with the Gulf Highlands/Beach Club West property. We just completed that transfer this past week. I appreciate Skipper Tonsmeire, Bill Lind and all of the members of the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust who thought it would be a good idea to transfer the properties to Alabama State Parks. I think the key to this is we were already making investments at Fort Morgan with (Deepwater Horizon) oil spill funds, and that was recognized by the Trust. I’m glad our work down there was noted.

“I also want to recognize the Trust’s work started long ago. Although we came in and acquired larger swaths, the Trust’s purchases were the genesis of preservation down there.”

Commissioner Blankenship said the donated lots will be a protected conservation property managed for beach mouse habitat and other conservation goals. These lots will be included in the overall management for the whole Gulf Highlands/Beach Club West property and managed as one unit.

Tasha Simon, Chief of the Natural Resources Section for Alabama State Parks, said the addition of the lots donated by the Trust are valuable for the overall management goals of the Fort Morgan properties.

“Having complete boundaries makes the management goals much easier to accomplish, not including the ecological importance of these lots,” Simon said. “These lots bring value to bird migration as well as the importance to the Alabama beach mouse. It also eliminates the encroachment of those lots being bought by private entities or individuals. These lots will be put under the protection of the Gulf Highlands/Beach Club West program.”

Simon said a dune walkover, parking lot and small boardwalk with be built on the east side of the Beach Club West property to provide controlled public access to the property.

The donated lots and Gulf Highlands/Beach Club West acquisitions add to three parcels acquired previously with Alabama Deepwater Horizon oil spill funding. ADCNR donated those parcels to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and they are now part of Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. Those previous acquisitions on the Fort Morgan Peninsula include Three Rivers Phase I (251 acres) and Three Rivers Phase II (236 acres) funded by NFWF (National Fish and Wildlife Foundation), along with the Pilot Town (99 acres) acquisition funded through the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) Regionwide Trustee Implementation Group. Commissioner Blankenship serves as the Lead NRDA Trustee for Alabama. Another 1,200 acres in Oyster Bay was acquired in conjunction with the City of Gulf Shores, Commissioner Blankenship said.

The 99-acre Pilot Town tract was purchased by ADCNR and then transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to become part of the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. The Pilot Town settlement, which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1906, was named for the bar pilots who guided sea-going vessels past the sand bars of Mobile Bay. The property will provide access to Bon Secour Bay for kayaks and beachgoers.

 “These and other acquisitions show that our barrier islands and Gulf-facing beaches are very important to ADCNR and our federal and local partners,” Commissioner Blankenship said. “We have worked very hard to conserve this critical, development-pressured habitat for future generations.”

Located 8 miles west of Gulf Shores, the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, was established to protect habitat for neotropical migratory songbirds as well as threatened and endangered species. Habitats in the refuge include sandy beach and dunes, sandy shrub scrub, coastal marsh, maritime forest and estuarine habitat.

“Those properties are critical habitat not only for the beach mouse, but also as a stopover point for migratory birds as they fly south in the winter and back north in the spring,” Commissioner Blankenship said. “Fort Morgan, Gulf State Park and Dauphin Island are the last piece of land or the first piece of land the birds see during the migrations. The food and the resting spots are critical to the survival of all those species.

“As I’ve said before, the Fort Morgan Peninsula is a beautiful and ecologically important piece of Coastal Alabama. We have been intentional in acquiring and protecting much of the remaining undeveloped habitat in this highly valuable area. When all the acquisition acres are combined, the collective positive impact is phenomenal.”