Estimating risk to humpback whales from shipping: a comparative approach from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, and Francisco Coloane Marine Protected Area, Chile | P17AS00719

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00719

This notice describes a National Park Service (NPS) intent to make a single, specific cooperative agreement award for a project focused on assessing and comparing the risk that commercial vessel traffic poses to humpback whales in two protected areas: Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska and the Francisco Coloane Marine Protected Area in Chile. The project title indicates that the work is framed as a comparative risk-estimation effort, meaning it is expected to look at how shipping-related threats to humpbacks differ between these two locations and what factors drive those differences, such as vessel traffic patterns, whale distribution and behavior, and local management conditions.

The opportunity is issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior through the National Park Service, and it is explicitly labeled as a Notice of Intent to Award rather than a competitive grant solicitation. In practical terms, that means the NPS is not asking the public to submit applications and there is no application deadline for outside parties. Instead, the agency is providing transparency that it plans to fund identified project activities without full and open competition, which is a common approach when the agency has a strong programmatic reason to work with a particular partner or when the work aligns with an established cooperative research framework.

The planned award mechanism is a cooperative agreement, not a standard grant. A cooperative agreement typically implies substantial involvement by the federal agency in the project, such as collaborating on study design, data sharing, coordination with park managers, or joint interpretation of results. The named recipient is the University of Washington, working under the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU). CESUs are partnership networks designed to connect federal land management agencies with universities and other research organizations to carry out applied science and technical assistance that supports resource stewardship. The specific cooperative agreement referenced is P17AC01307, and the funding opportunity number is P17AS00719.

The scope of work, as indicated by the title, centers on estimating shipping-related risk to humpback whales. In real-world conservation and management contexts, that type of risk analysis often relates to issues like the likelihood and consequences of vessel strikes, disturbance from vessel presence, and potential impacts associated with underwater noise that can affect whale communication, foraging, and movement. The comparative element suggests the project is meant to generate insights that are useful beyond a single site, potentially helping managers understand which risk drivers are consistent across regions and which are site-specific, and to inform management actions such as routing measures, speed recommendations, timing of traffic, or other mitigation strategies tailored to each protected area.

Administratively, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding using a cooperative agreement as the funding instrument, with an activity focus in natural resources. The CFDA number listed is 15.945, which corresponds to National Park Service-related assistance. The eligible applicant category in the record is public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, consistent with the identified partner institution. The notice anticipates one award, with an award ceiling of $25,280, indicating a relatively small, targeted research or analytical effort rather than a large multi-year program. The creation date for the opportunity record is August 23, 2017.

Overall, the notice functions mainly as a public record that the National Park Service intends to support a specific university-led research collaboration, aimed at producing comparative, management-relevant estimates of how shipping affects humpback whale risk in Glacier Bay and in Chilean waters at Francisco Coloane. Since it is not a request for applications, the key takeaway for most readers is not how to apply, but what project the NPS plans to fund, who the partner is, the expected single-award nature of the action, and the modest funding level associated with the planned cooperative agreement.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Estimating risk to humpback whales from shipping: a comparative approach from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, and Francisco Coloane Marine Protected Area, Chile" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 23, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by This is not a request for applciations. (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 $25,280.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P17AS00719

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