Quantifying Double-Crested Cormorant effects on recreational fish populations | F19AS00355

Opportunity Information: Apply for F19AS00355

This grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F19AS00355) is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service discretionary grant under the Department of the Interior (CFDA 15.608) focused on understanding and predicting how double-crested cormorants (DCCO) affect recreational fish populations, particularly in the Great Lakes region. The central purpose is to pull together existing research and monitoring data from across North America and turn it into practical, decision-oriented tools that fisheries and wildlife managers can use when considering cormorant management actions across multiple states.

The project is built around hiring a post-doctoral researcher through the Great Lakes Cormorant Working Group, with technical guidance from Michigan State Universitys Quantitative Fishery Center. Rather than funding new field studies, the work emphasizes collating, standardizing, and analyzing already-available datasets related to cormorant fish consumption and measurable impacts on fish populations. A key goal is to identify which fish population indicators are most sensitive and reliable for detecting changes linked to cormorant predation. In other words, the work aims to determine what metrics (for example, abundance, recruitment, survival, size structure, or other population measures) best capture when cormorants are meaningfully affecting fish populations, and when management actions lead to improvements.

A major feature of the approach is treating cormorant consumption similarly to how fisheries managers treat human harvest in traditional stock assessment and harvest control frameworks. The project intends to estimate thresholds, explicitly accounting for uncertainty, in aquatic systems where cormorant predation has been shown to be problematic and where subsequent cormorant management produced a positive fish population response. By comparing systems and outcomes, the researcher would develop predictive models that can inform how much cormorant foraging pressure a fish population can sustain before negative effects become likely, and what level of control might be needed to achieve measurable benefits.

The expected deliverable is a predictive yield model that produces a management-relevant concept described as a "safe allowable foraging effort." Practically, this would function as a decision support benchmark: a way to estimate the level of cormorant foraging that can occur without unacceptable harm to targeted recreational fish populations, and therefore the intensity of cormorant control potentially required when observed or predicted foraging exceeds that safe level. The opportunity emphasizes that the resulting methodology should be broadly transferable, meaning it should be applicable not just to the Great Lakes, but to a wide variety of water bodies and fish populations across the United States.

Administratively, this notice is a notice of intent to make a single-source award, not an open competitive funding call. There is no application process. The agency states it plans to award one grant, with an award ceiling of $70,000, to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The justification for awarding without competition is that it stems from an unsolicited proposal offering a unique approach to meet an important regional need, and that competition is not practical under the cited justification (505DM 2.14.B(1)). The opportunity was created on Aug 27, 2019, with an original closing date of Sep 04, 2019, reflecting that it is primarily an award notice rather than a solicitation for new applicants.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the environment, natural resources, regional development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Quantifying Double-Crested Cormorant effects on recreational fish populations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.608.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 27, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 04, 2019 There is not an application process for this funding opportunity. This is a notice of intent to award a single source grant to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources under justification 505DM 2.14B(1).. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $70,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for F19AS00355

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