Request for tenders for the provision of technical consultancy in freshwater salmonid assessment

Description

Inland Fisheries Ireland is the state agency responsible for the protection, management and conservation of Ireland's inland fisheries and sea angling resources. Ireland has over 74,000 kilometres of rivers and streams and 128,000 hectares of lakes all of which fall under the jurisdiction of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI). Inland Fisheries Ireland invites tenders from suitably qualified and experienced applicants primarily to co-ordinate and undertake delivery of an established salmon assessment monitoring programme which will recommence on the 1st July 2022. The initial contract will be for a six-month period, with potential to extend the contract on an annual basis pending funding until December 2025. The programme entails the following: • Day-to-day coordination of IFI’s national catchment wide electrofishing (CWEF) programme on up to 50 salmon systems. • Sampling catchments using catchment-wide electrofishing technique. • Collection of samples for Gyrodactyus salaris surveillance (30 fry per catchment in no more than 8 catchments per annum) in association with CWEF. • Biological assessment of named salmon stocks including collection and interpretation of scale samples and data, including salmon scales from the National Salmon Scale Project and any other relevant data from key rivers, to input into the scientific process for assessment of salmon stocks and advice regarding attainment of conservation limits. • Compilation, analysis and reporting of all programme data and results. • Preparation of screening assessments for CWEF on an annual basis in advance of the field season (years 2023, 2024 and 2025). • Collating and validation of existing salmon wetted area river segment shapefiles associated with salmon catchments into a single, GIS layer (year 2023 to 2025). • Support IFI to integrate existing CWEF datasets into IFI data management systems (years 2023 to 2025).