This is a Notice of Intent (NOI) to award a non-competitive Task Agreement under the Gulf Coast, Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Master Cooperative Agreement (P12AC51051) in accordance with Department of Interior, 505 Departmental Manual 2.12C. The purpose of this project is to 1) identify factors that may influence brown bear populations and develop a conceptual population model, 2) identify metrics presently used to monitor bear populations and harvest, 3) create hypothetical but representative data sets that reflect a range of scenarios for the influential factors identified in objective 1, and 4) assess the metrics identified in objective 2 relative to their ability to detect change, timeliness, likelihood of false positives and negatives, and required cost and effort. This effort will inform the current structured decision making process as well as provide a quantitative evaluation of tools to monitor brown bear populations given agency-specific concerns and management goals. Please see attached Full Announcement for more information.