An environmental program spearheaded by a group of residents in the Summer Village of Gull Lake, is having much success, and they continue to take on new projects.
 
With the cottages sitting in a strip of natural area, they impact the wildlife around the lake, so work continues to improve the habitat, especially for birds.
 
Community member and biologist Cam McTavish explains what they tackled last year.

“We put about 30 small boxes up last year, and these are for the small passerines, so the chickadees and the swallows etc. It’s just breeding boxes, there’s habitat around, but breeding habitat is kind of limited and critical of course, so if you put up a box they will come, and that’s actually what we found with 29 of the 30 actually received use. Two were colonized by bees which we thought was totally cool and one by a nocturnal flying squirrel.”

McTavish says they also put up bat maternity houses as well as 2 large colony purple martin houses which received good use last year, with one fully used, fledging at least 15 babies.
 
This year the Gull Lake Community League was awarded a $2,000 Environmental Improvement grant from Lacombe County to build 26 new large breeding boxes for larger species like flickers, and ducks like goldeneye, and bufflehead, as well as small owls.

McTavish says those species will nest in over mature trees and they don’t have a lot of over mature trees in the Summer Village so they reached out to the County for help with the project.

All of these little projects help to further educate both the permanent residents of Gull Lake, but also the summer residents and visitors and children who visit as part of summer programming.
 
They've added around 20 interpretive signs around the village with poems and puzzles to help families explore around the lake, all thanks to support from Lacombe County and Lacombe Signmasters.

The group has also been proactive to protect the natural area around the lake following some prior issues with ATV users.

Again, thanks to Lacombe County funding, they were able to put up a fence on the northeast end of the Summer Village to prevent those recreational users who were heading off trail, along the shoreline.