Cooperatively Assess Federal Trust Species, Potential Effects on their Populations, and Habitat Usage and Availability in the Mississippi River

This project builds upon decades of cooperation among USFWS, MDC, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to assess Pallid Sturgeon and Macrhybopsis chub populations, habitat availability, and potential impacts of channel maintenance activities. Principal activities to be completed in this project include: 1) larval trawling to estimate abundance of age-0 pallid sturgeon, compare these data with twenty years of fixed surveys, and assess length distributions over time; 2) correlate age-0 sturgeon abundance with ongoing larval drift studies to assess potential interception habitat availability near high abundance drift locations; 3) sample fish and survey habitat parameters at five fixed sites from drift through the end of the growing season; 4) Assist with sampling larval drift and sorting preserved samples; and 5) collect flow and bathymetric habitat data to quantify habitat availability. This is a notice of intent to award a single source cooperative agreement without competition to Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) Big Rivers and Wetlands Field Station (BRWFS) under justifications 505DM2.14.B(2)&(4). Competition for this award is not practical as this is a continuation of work previously performed by MDC BRWFS, for which they are uniquely qualified by experience, location, and status as the state agency responsible for fish and wildlife management. MDC BRWFS has 1) over twenty years of experience working on this stretch of river assessing the fishes and habitats, 2) all necessary boats and rigging to utilize all sampling and monitoring gears, 3) an office location along the river in the middle of the stretch of interest, allowing day trip sampling without advance travel planning. Substantial involvement on the part of the Service is anticipated for the successful completion of the activities to be funded. In particular, the Service will be responsible for expanded drifting larval fish sampling, flow and bathymetry based habitat assessment, and assisting with data analysis.