In 2017, the City of Gulf Shores purchased 836 acres of critical habitat in the Bon Secour River watershed with funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund. The purpose of the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund is to support projects that remedy harm to natural resources resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
This allowed the City to create two new nature preserves - the Oyster Bay Nature Preserve and the Emmet O. and Vina Wenzel Wetland Preserve. By creating these preserves, there will be no future development possible.