Assessing Impacts of Hurricane Irma on the Silver Rice Rat

THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD TO A SINGLE SOURCE, AND THERE IS NO FULL ANNOUNCEMENT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS NOTICE. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) intends to award a cooperative agreement to The University of Florida will assess the impacts of Hurricane Irma on the silver rice rat (SRR) population. Specifically, a range-wide survey of the SRR, an endangered species will be conducted using methods appropriate to the species and habitat (i.e., using floating live trap platforms in accordance with the USFWS Rice Rat Trapping protocol as well as camera traps) and compared with historic metrics of occurrence and population size. Occupied areas and the areas adjacent to them will then be resampled the following winter, approximately 12 months later. This will allow assessments of localized recruitment and colonization rates to determine if the population in recovering and resilient to hurricanes. Finally, the data from range-wide surveys will be used to model all potential SRR habitat in the Keys and to assess the vulnerability of these areas under different scenarios of sea-level rise and storm impact.