IBSS was awarded a task order with NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to provide consultation services to the Alaska Regional Office (AKR) Protected Resources Division (PRD).
According to the AKR website, “the Alaska Region oversees sustainable fisheries that produce about half the fish caught in U.S. waters, contributing more than $7 billion to the national economy and supporting our nation’s food security. Our area of responsibility includes nearly 1.5 million square miles (70 percent of the total U.S. continental shelf) of the North Pacific Ocean, including the Arctic Oceans (Chukchi and Beaufort seas), Gulf of Alaska, and the eastern Bering Sea. These waters support some of the most productive and valuable commercial fisheries in the world, and are also home to the largest populations of marine mammals in the nation.
“We also work with our counterpart, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, in the science-based stewardship of living marine resources and their habitat in the waters of the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans off Alaska.”
IBSS will provide the following types of consulting services to AKR:
- Early technical assistance concerning the presence of Endangered Species Act (ESA) species associated with federal projects with ESA species recovery actions
- Preparing Letters of Concurrence
- Preparing Biological Opinions
As a trusted NOAA partner for more than 20 years, IBSS looks forward to continuing our ongoing service to NOAA Fisheries while supporting IBSS’s goal of providing “tech for science”.
