South Alabama Land Trust has taken over a long-standing agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help protect habitat for the federally endangered Alabama beach mouse, expanding the organization's conservation efforts along the Alabama Gulf Coast.

For the past 15 years, the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust managed a fund created to offset the loss of beach mouse habitat caused by development. With the approval of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, those responsibilities have now been transferred to South Alabama Land Trust, or SALT.

"Fifteen years ago, the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service entered into this memorandum of agreement, and under that agreement Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust has been managing the beach mouse fees that are assessed whenever a developer is proposing a project that will consume beach mouse habitat," SALT Executive Director Jane Herndon said.

Because the Alabama beach mouse is protected under the Endangered Species Act, developers whose projects affect its habitat must make up for those impacts. They can do that by preserving other habitats or by paying into a fund used to acquire and protect additional land.

SALT will now oversee that fund.

As development continues in Gulf Shores and Fort Morgan, Herndon said habitat loss remains the biggest threat facing the species.

"Loss of habitat and loss of continuity of habitat," she said. "You can have an isolated parcel that has beach mouse habitat on it, but what the beach mouse really needs is continuity of habitat."

Protecting the species also helps preserve the dunes that line Alabama's beaches, Herndon said. The mice play an important role in spreading seeds for dune grasses, which help stabilize the dunes and protect them from storms.

"We all love our dunes at the beach, and the Alabama beach mouse is like an engineer, if you will, when it comes to building these dunes or protecting these dunes," Herndon said. "They have a vital role in dispersing seeds for the dune grasses that you see on the sand dunes, and it's those dune grasses that strengthen the dunes from storms."

Looking ahead, Herndon said success would mean protecting more habitat, though finding affordable land on the Fort Morgan Peninsula can be difficult.

"The difficulty is there's money in this fund, but land is very expensive on the Fort Morgan Peninsula," she said. "I'm hopeful that we can identify land that has beach mouse habitat and that landowners would be interested in selling and that they would be willing to work with us to make these deals happen."

Herndon said SALT is honored to continue the work started by the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust.

"We were hugely honored that the Alabama Coastal Heritage Trust entrusted us with this work and also very honored that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has the confidence in SALT to carry this program forward," she said. "I can say on behalf of the board of directors of SALT, this is a really exciting new expansion of our work, where we're doing land conservation work that's really targeted to a federally endangered species."

Protecting the beach mouse means protecting one of the area's defining natural features, she said.

"Everybody loves the dunes, and that's why people come down here to the beach," Herndon said. "The beach mouse has a big role in creating this beautiful environment that we like to play in, and it's worth protecting." 

Gabriella Chavez is a Report for America corps member who writes about growth and development in Baldwin County and our natural spaces for Gulf Coast Media. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://tinyurl.com/yaf8yf5n.