Where is weeks bay

Provide leadership to promote informed management of estuarine and coastal habitats through scientific understanding and encourage good stewardship practices through partnerships, public education, and outreach programs.

Sign Up. View More Results. Outdoor Alabama. Weeks Bay Reserve. Breadcrumb Activities Weeks Bay Reserve. Facilitation Basics for Coastal Managers, virtual training; Oct. Facilitation Basics for Coastal Managers, virtual training; Nov. The foundation staff is governed by an elected Board of Directors. The foundation currently has more than members who assist the staff in education, research, and environmental protection functions, including such projects as water quality monitoring and educational outreach programs.

The preserve features the 4,square-foot Weeks Bay Reserve Interpretive Center, constructed in to house informational displays and live animal exhibits and offer educational programs for school groups and other organizations. From the center, visitors can traverse 5, feet of boardwalk and more than two miles of nature trails that take them through a native pitcher plant bog, a butterfly and hummingbird garden, archaeological displays, and estuarine habitats.

A research facility with a seat auditorium completes the facilities infrastructure. The reserve also participates in a Web-based distance-learning project in cooperation with Faulkner State Community College and professional development programs for teachers. Derelict Crab Traps at Weeks Bay The Weeks Bay ecosystem provides habitat for as many as 19 threatened and endangered species , including the bald eagle, Alabama shovelnose sturgeon, Alabama red-bellied turtle , alligator snapping turtle, Gulf salt marsh snake, and eastern indigo snake.

Additionally, Weeks Bay shelters the American alligator, Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, and numerous freshwater and marine fish and invertebrate species, including shrimp, oysters, and the blue crab.

It is also a sheltered haven for resident and migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, including brown pelicans and ospreys. The forested acreage of the reserve provides habitat for black bear, deer and other mammals as well as critically important stopover points for a large number of migratory songbirds. Nearly species of birds are found in the coastal wetlands. The threats to Weeks Bay Reserve are those common to all of the Gulf Coast and include water pollution, habitat loss caused by soil sedimentation from construction, and development on buffer wetlands that destroys habitat.

The reserve plans to purchase lands that become available for sale to mitigate these issues. The most significant and unexpected threat to the bay to date occurred in April , when millions of gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico after an underwater explosion on an oil rig owned by Deepwater Horizon, under contract with British Petroleum BP. The long-term effects of the Gulf oil disaster are still unknown, but during the spill itself, the nearby town of Magnolia Springs took the initiative and purchased an oil-absorbent boom after the absence of a timely response by BP or the federal government.

The boom was deployed across the mouth of the bay with the assistance of local fire departments. The barrier and the fact that very little of the oil spread into the immediate Weeks Bay area as a result of its geographic location apparently spared it from major damage.