B08_Solicitation_(Attch_6_QA_Document)_0001.docx

Questions & Answers 140PS124Q0002 – NER Deer Census

1. Will baiting/pre-baiting be allowed on the NPS land? If baiting is allowed, but pre-baiting is not, that will impact the price. There is a great deal of distance between some of these sites, so the travel involved makes a difference.

A. Pre-baiting would be allowed if needed for methods such as camera surveys. However, this question suggests the contractor is looking to complete “sampling estimates” of the deer population versus complete censuses as requested in the proposal. For these censuses, all deer are to be counted in the park. While we are not prescribing the method, some approaches would likely not meet our requirements for the contract.

2. For FONE, MORR, and SAGA, are there any restrictions on the alternative survey method? Specifically, would spotlight surveys be permitted on NPS land?

A. See answer to question 1. In addition, most parks have insufficient roadways for spotlight surveys.

3. Is it possible to get shapefiles for each park?

A. There are several national GIS layers that potential contractors can download; they’ll then need to zoom in to view each park. The main site for layers is: National Park Service: Official Service-wide Datasets - Content.

Probably of most interest to potential contractors:

Boundaries: NPS - Land Resources Division Boundary and Tract Data Service - Overview Roads: NPS - Roads - Geographic Coordinate System - Overview Trails: NPS - Trails - Geographic Coordinate System - Overview Parking areas: NPS - Parking Areas - Geographic Coordinate System - Overview

Most parks also have vegetation maps, these can be downloaded by park from this site: Vegetation Inventory Products (U.S. National Park Service).

4. Please clarify the requirement at 4.1 “Contractor shall comply with National Defense Authorization Act 2024”

A. The requirement is included because of the potential for drone use; the NDAA includes a prohibition against drones with Chinese parts. Within the NDAA is the American Drone Security Act, which is title XVIII, Subtitle B, of the NDAA.

5. Section 3.0 of the SOW states: “Preparatory planning, pre-survey reconnaissance, and censuses of the entirety of each park to obtain rapid and accurate deer counts over the course of a single night in winter of 2025 at each park unit identified in this SOW (Table 1). For three parks, a second census will be conducted over the same time period using a different census design to provide a measure of variability and detection probability in the counts.” – What does “over the same time period” mean for the three parks and the second census? Does this mean the same night or the same week? We are concerned that conducting, for example, a drone survey and distance sampling via spotlighting simultaneously will introduce bias into the counts.

A. “Over the same time period” means the same night. This is not intended to be a different method, but is intended to be the same method repeated. For example, a drone census repeated with different flight lines (or flying the census in reverse). The goal is to detect additional deer that may have been missed on the first pass in order to estimate detection probability in forested habitats.

6. The primary method appears to be drone counts. Please confirm that this is a correct assumption. Could the secondary rapid method be distance sampling via spotlighting, even though it is not a true census method? The only other censusing methods would be aerial FLIR or a helicopter count over snow. In sum, are distance sampling methods acceptable? Or is the SOW indicating that two competing drone surveys with different parameters should be completed in three parks?

A. Census via drone is a suitable approach. The plan is to use a method like a drone census twice in the same night, with different parameters. See also the response to Question 5.

7. Section 4.5 states, “Personnel, equipment, transportation, travel, and services needed for the tasks described in this SOW will be provided by the contractor.” This section suggests that NPS is looking for full turnkey work conducted by the contractor. Is there room for NPS staff integration? Can/will NPS staff participate as a spotter for drone and/or distance sampling efforts?

A. Contractor proposals should reflect turnkey work under the assumption NPS personnel will not be available as this cannot be guaranteed. NPS staff may, if available, serve as spotters if well-briefed on the task, but NPS staff are not allowed to cross the line into operational control of drone missions.