At Saltwater Inc., we believe that high-quality data is vital to the health of our fisheries and oceans: our mission is to provide that data. We are a Women-Owned Small Business and are constantly seeking new team members who share our passion for innovation and environmental wellness. We are currently recruiting for a Fisheries Management Specialist to work with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council to characterize the scope of recent changes in fisheries data availability and quality for East Coast marine fisheries, quantify how those changes are expected to affect stock assessments and management advice under different climate drivers, and identify management strategies that are robust to these changes to support the development of climate-ready management tools.
This is a three-year contract anticipated to start in September, 2024 and end in February, 2027. Work can be performed remotely, but travel will be required for meetings.
Duties:
The Mid-Atlantic Council seeks a contractor to:
- Catalog and document the challenges associated with changes in federal survey and fishery-dependent data collection programs along the entire East Coast from 2010 to the present.
- Quantify the scientific and management uncertainty implications of changing data availability under different climate change scenarios.
- Conduct a management strategy evaluation or simulation analyses to evaluate the performance of alternative management risk policies and harvest control rules and the associated tradeoffs under different data availability/quality and climate projection scenarios.
- Use the results of the management strategy evaluation to identify climate-ready fishery management strategies and processes that account for these uncertainties.
- Develop recommendations to improve survey protocols and fishery-dependent data collection along the East Coast.
The Council envisions work being conducted in three phases:
- Phase 1: Documenting changes to federal fishery-dependent and independent programs along the East Coast (anticipated timeline: September 2024 – February 2025)
- Work in coordination with the NOAA Science Centers and Regional Offices to inventory all existing federal fishery-independent surveys and fishery-dependent data collection programs along the East Coast, catalog areas of declining sampling and missed data collection efforts and identify potential challenges and anticipated changes associated with relevant survey or sampling programs. Information will be compiled from existing source documents, including the anticipated results of the National Survey Program, and through interviews with experts and sampling program leads.
- Phase 2: Quantifying and evaluating science and management implications through management strategy evaluation (anticipated timeline: March 2025 – October 2026)
- Conduct a management strategy evaluation and/or simulation analysis to evaluate the effects of changing data availability and uncertainties under different climate change projection scenarios on stock assessments and management advice and identify risk policies and harvest control rules that minimize the biological and socioeconomic impacts of that uncertainty. Develop the modeling/simulation framework, test management strategies and alternative operating models, identify performance metrics and tradeoff scenarios, and summarize the results in an understandable and easy to use format. Due to the large number of East Coast stocks, differing Council risk policies and harvest control rules, and range of data sources across the regions, a subset of stocks/fisheries will need to be identified to be included in the analyses.
- Facilitate 1-2 workshops with managers, scientists, and staff to identify priority management objectives, strategies, and stocks/fisheries for evaluation, as well as to review and offer feedback on model development and performance metrics.
- Phase 3: Review management strategy evaluation outcomes and develop science and management recommendations (anticipated timeline: November 2026 – February 2027)
- Facilitate a workshop with managers and stakeholders to review the outcomes of the MSE (Phase 2). This workshop will identify potential climate-ready management strategies at the coastwide, regional, or individual Council level that are robust and effective under changing data and climate scenarios. The workshop will also develop recommendations on how to address, support, or modify federal survey and fishery-dependent data collection programs along the East Coast. Develop education/public awareness documents describing key findings and recommendations from the project.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree with emphasis in fisheries or similar and 3 years of experience performing fisheries management tasks.
- Extensive expertise in management strategy evaluation, simulation model development, structured decision analysis, and stock assessments.
- A strong knowledge of federal fisheries survey and data collection programs particularly along the East Coast, and an understanding of how information is used in the science and management processes.
- Experience working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders, scientists, and managers, to seek input and develop management tools and/or recommendations.
- Experience reviewing fishery data and scientific literature, including ability to compile and synthesize large and diverse data and information sources.
- Preference given to contractors with experience in group facilitation focused on seeking input, generating ideas, and building consensus.
Salary range is $33-$37/hr. Medical insurance, Holiday, PTO, Sick pay, and 401K are also offered.
Saltwater Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and a VEVRAA Federal Contractor and does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, parental status, veteran status, or disability status. We strive to create an inclusive workplace culture to attract the best talent and allow each member of our team to achieve their full potential and maximum productivity. Furthermore, Saltwater Inc. highly encourages qualified individuals with disabilities and protected veterans to apply for positions for which they are qualified and to notify us if there are any needs for accommodation throughout the application process and/or upon hire.
We will honor all requests for application confidentiality.
Apply Here: https://www.click2apply.net/PGqKjYHAbgjDZCw8Ru7baz
PI244941780