The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is soliciting proposals to improve existing efforts to reduce mortality of whales from entanglement in fishing gear in Southern California.
Donor Name: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)
State: California
County: Los Angeles County (CA), Orange County (CA), Santa Barbara County (CA), Ventura County (CA)
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 07/17/2024
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The activities will provide compensatory restoration for injury to cetaceans caused by the Refugio Beach Oil Spill (RBOS). Specifically, the aim of the activities is to augment an existing permitted and authorized program off the southern California coast by increasing the capacity of the entanglement response network in areas that need additional support to respond to reports of entangled cetaceans, to document and disentangle these animals, and to broadly support efforts to reduce the number of entanglements that could lead to serious injuries or mortalities.
Priorities
Project proposals should address as many of these program priorities as possible:
Directly Enhance Entanglement Response
Enhance entanglement responses that benefit cetaceans in Southern California. Types of direct response activities could include, but are not limited to:
- Participate in, and/or lead, entanglement responses in Southern California
- Participate in, and/or lead, entanglement responses beyond Southern California that benefit cetaceans in Southern California
Coordinate with federal, state and local resource agencies
- This project will work closely with federal, state and local resource agencies to enhance coordination of the overall West Coast Marine Mammal Entanglement Response Program (Program), with a primary focus of benefitting cetaceans in Southern California.
Train and develop volunteer response capacity
- Efforts to train and develop volunteer response capacity throughout the West Coast have been limited. In addition, the relatively low number of high-level trained responders on the West Coast make it difficult to generate effective responses that may include detailed documentation of entanglement events, as well as disentanglement efforts.
Build capacity and infrastructure
- Proposals should outline how these activities will contribute to the development of the overall capacity and infrastructure of the Program.
Funding Information
An estimated $250,000 will be available through this solicitation for a Phase 1 project award, which is anticipated to last 1–2 years.
Geographic Focus
- The priority geographic focus is Southern California, and – in particular for responding to entangled cetaceans – the coastlines off Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties Applicants do not need to be primarily based in the Southern California area if they can provide assurance that they can effectively perform entanglement response and capacity building activities in Southern California.
- Project proposals may include additional activities outside of the priority geographic focus if they relate to the health and protection of individual cetaceans that may occur in southern California at some point during their life.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include non-profit 501(c) organizations, state government agencies, local governments, municipal governments, for-profit organizations, Tribal governments and organizations, educational institutions, international organizations.
- Ineligible applicants include U.S. federal government agencies, and unincorporated individuals.
For more information, visit NFWF.
