Request for Proposals: Continue Development of a Management Strategy Evaluation for the Snapper Grouper Fishery

Posted March 31, 2025

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) is seeking a contractor to continue development of a management strategy evaluation (MSE) for the snapper grouper fishery to evaluate management alternatives. The development of the MSE should focus on management alternatives for the recreational sector while evaluating impacts to all sectors. 

Proposal Submission Deadline: April 30, 2025

Background:

The Snapper Grouper Complex is a diverse group of fishes managed by the Council that are targeted by recreational and commercial fishermen throughout the South Atlantic region (Virginia and North Carolina border through the Florida Keys).  Several species in the region complex are overfished and experiencing overfishing based on the findings of recent age-based stock assessments.  The Council has responded to the findings of these stock assessments by revising the sustainable catch levels for each species and making other changes to the regulations for individual species to achieve the allowable catches.  Due to the significant reductions needed to constrain catch for multiple stocks and the difficulty of successfully managing a multi-species complex with individual species’ regulations, the Council is considering a holistic approach to manage the multi-species fishery that will address overfishing and rebuild depleted stocks while optimizing yield and reducing regulatory discarding. The snapper grouper fishery MSE is an important tool that the Council expects to improve its ability to evaluate different management approaches across multiple species.

An initial suite of management options has been evaluated, and new management scenarios will need to be developed to evaluate actionable management measures.  However, some of the initial scenarios that demonstrated a reduction in the number of discards were too broad to develop actionable management measures and further, focused analysis of additional management measures has been requested by the Council. One such measure is the use of aggregate bag limits.  The Council is seeking a contractor to further develop the SAFMC-MSE r package designed for conducting management strategy evaluations for South Atlantic managed species.

Project Scope

The Council is seeking a contractor to continue to develop the Snapper Grouper MSE (r package SAFMC-MSE).  The contractor will be required to work collaboratively with staff from the Southeast Fishery Science Center, Southeast Regional Office, Council, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and contractor(s) to develop a model to describe the biological, economic, or social impacts of different management approaches.  The operating model will be conditioned on available age-based stock assessments.  The continued development of the model should include refining recreational management scenarios for the Council and incorporating additional information such as:

• Specific management action related to aggregate bag limits (across species in the Snapper Grouper Complex) and to account for effort contraction and expansion as season lengths change. This may require adding an additional non-target species to the models and a behavioral component to the modeling. 
• Economic and social operational management objectives to better account for the non-yield based objectives of the recreational fishery. These could be days at sea, fishing opportunity or other social or economic objectives that would address recreational satisfaction.
• State-based spatial structure for the operating models to aid in understanding impact of state by state management or closed areas,
• Different operating models that consider key stock assessment and management uncertainties such as non-stationarity, different starting population conditions, or impacts of different data sources.
• If available, incorporate the South Atlantic Red snapper research program ‘count’ into the operating models.
• Management actions that are currently in place (e.g. status quo management or actions pending from the Secretarial Action – Snapper Grouper Amendment 59). This will require working together with the interdisciplinary team (defined below) to incorporate actionable management options.
• Additional management scenarios based on input from ongoing social science research, council input and empirical data from ongoing exempted permit fishing fleets.

Management models will be developed based on simulated datasets conditioned through the operating model to derive management action. Summary models will use performance metrics recommended by the public and Council to evaluate the relative performance of the management approaches to achieving objectives. 

Role of Contractor and Deliverables

The role of the contractor will be to continue to develop the SAFMC-MSE package based on the input from the Council and their advisors, general public, and an Interdisciplinary Team designed to support SAFMC-MSE development.  The members of the Interdisciplinary Team (staff of the Southeast Fishery Science Center, Southeast Regional Office, and Council) will be responsible for gathering needed data or connecting the contractor with data providers.  The project should:

• Integrate economic, social, ecosystem, or spatial models into SAFMC-MSE.
• Work to integrate management scenarios and evaluation metrics from ongoing social science research.
• Develop and present a MSE to describe tradeoffs between different management approaches focused on recreational fisheries and improving fishery satisfaction.
• Test sensitivity of the model to assumptions included and develop uncertainty intervals for different management approaches.
• Provide presentations as needed to the Council, Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel, and Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC).  Depending on the integrated model components, presentations may be required to obtain feedback from other advisory panels such as Habitat and Ecosystem or Social and Economic Panel or groups recommended by the social science contractor.
• Post modifications to the SAFMC-MSE package on Github.
• Compile a report based on the findings of the MSE based on the analyses.

Project Timeline

The MSE process is scheduled to begin early May in 2025 and expected to be completed by September 30, 2026.  The contractor will attend the Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel and SSC meetings in October 2025 and April 2026 and Council meetings during September 2025, December 2025, June 2026, and September 2026.  The contractor will provide a final presentation and draft report to the Council three weeks prior to the September 2026 meeting.  A final report will be provided by September 30, 2026, to incorporate comments from the Council at the September 2025 meeting.

Qualifications 

The successful candidate should have:

• Experience developing multi-species MSEs.
• Familiarity working with recreational landings, discard estimates, and selectivity of gears used in the snapper grouper fishery.
• Experience developing fisheries simulation models, structured decision analysis, and data-limited assessments.
• Understanding of the SAFMC-MSE package and ability to modify it.
• Knowledge of social and economic datasets available in the region or U.S. to describe social and economic impacts of the management decisions.

Contracts and Submission Deadline

Proposals must be submitted by April 30, 2025, to chip.collier@safmc.net or mailed to Chip Collier, Deputy Director for Science, South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 4055 Faber Place Dr, Suite 201, North Charleston, SC, 29405.  Proposals must include a detailed budget (not to exceed $220,000 for the length of the project) including hourly rate for researcher(s) and total number of hours associated project deliverables and associated meetings including Interdisciplinary Team meetings (virtual) and attending advisory panel, SSC, and Council meetings (virtual and in-person).  The proposal should include a description of the contractor’s qualifications and related work experience.

How to Apply:

Applicants should submit completed proposals to Chip.Collier@safmc.net or mailed to Chip Collier, Deputy Director for Science, South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, 4055 Faber Place Dr, Suite 201, North Charleston, SC, 29405.  Please include the project title in the subject line by 11:59 pm on April 30, 2025. 

Proposals are not to exceed 10 pages and should include the following elements:

• Executive Summary: A summary of the proposed scope of work as well as summary of the applicant’s qualifications (not to exceed 1 page).
• Description of Work: A detailed plan for addressing the scope of work and deliverables described above.  This should include proposed analytical approaches, a project schedule, project management, and dissemination of results.
• Proposed Budget: A detailed budget for each year of the project, not to exceed a total of $220,000 for the full project term.  The budget must include the basis for the charges (e.g., hourly rates, fixed fees) and a breakdown of expenses by category: Salary, Fringe, Travel, Supplies, Equipment, Sub-Contract, and Indirect.
• Qualifications of Applicant: A summary of the qualifications of the applicant, and other team members, if applicable.
• Outside of the 10 page limit, include a two page CV for each PI and Collaborator.

Proposal Evaluation Criteria:

Proposals will be evaluated based on relevance to the request for proposal, technical merit of the project, qualifications of applicants, budget, and outreach and communication of results. The Council may request additional information as deemed necessary or negotiate modifications to an accepted proposal.