F23AS00139 Zoonotic Disease Initiative - Tribes | F23AS00139

Opportunity Information: Apply for F23AS00139

F23AS00139, the Zoonotic Disease Initiative (ZDI) - Tribes, is a discretionary grant program run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service using American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to help Tribal wildlife agencies strengthen their ability to detect, respond to, and manage wildlife diseases that could spill over into people or domestic animals. The basic idea behind the opportunity is pandemic prevention upstream: investing in wildlife health monitoring, surveillance, diagnostics, planning, and coordinated response capacity so outbreaks in free-ranging wildlife are identified early and addressed quickly, before they escalate into larger ecological, economic, or public health crises. The program is explicitly focused on building durable capacity and readiness, not just one-off studies, and it emphasizes coordination across jurisdictions so Tribes, States, and Territories can operate as a connected network rather than isolated programs.

The opportunity is open to federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other eligible Native American tribal organizations. Projects are designed to run from one to three years. While the notice describes expected awards in general terms, it specifies an award ceiling of $775,000 per award. The application closing date listed for this opportunity was April 20, 2023. The program sits within the Natural Resources funding activity category (CFDA 15.069) and uses a standard grant instrument.

At the core of the ZDI program are several capacity outcomes the agency is trying to create or strengthen within wildlife management entities. One major objective is ensuring wildlife managers have an up-to-date, evidence-based wildlife disease plan. The disease plan is expected to cover practical, real-world components such as surveillance strategies and techniques; diagnostic capabilities spanning pathology, microbiology, virology, parasitology, toxicology, and biosafety; outbreak response procedures; wildlife population management options; regulatory and policy actions; data management and sharing; risk assessment and decision support; training; and communication planning so that key stakeholders receive accurate information quickly. Another objective is building interjurisdictional connections so Tribal, State, and Territorial managers in the same regions are linked with each other and with public health and veterinary partners. Additional objectives include improving access to wildlife disease diagnostic services and strengthening the ability to manage, share, and communicate wildlife health data.

The grant supports a wide range of allowable activities, essentially spanning the full lifecycle of wildlife disease preparedness and response. Funding can be used to develop best management practices (BMPs) for wildlife disease issues, including broad BMPs or topic-specific guidance (for example, around wildlife feeding practices, water quantity/quality management, or pest management approaches). It can also support biosecurity and biosafety measures such as field protocols, handling procedures, captive facility practices, and educational efforts, including implementing those protocols in day-to-day operations. Communications is another eligible area, including building rapid internal and external communication structures for both routine events and emergencies, and developing public-facing message templates so agencies can communicate quickly and consistently during disease events.

A substantial portion of allowable work centers on anticipating and prioritizing risks before crises occur. This includes disease forecasting, risk assessment, and horizon scanning, such as needs assessments to identify capacity gaps; examining how climate change may alter disease dynamics; evaluating pathogen environmental persistence and exposure pathways; identifying spillover hotspots; determining highly susceptible species and locations; and examining human health and economic implications. The opportunity also calls out interest in assessing "reverse zoonotic transmission," meaning disease movement from humans or livestock into wildlife, which is increasingly relevant for long-term wildlife conservation and health security.

Planning and systems-building activities are strongly supported. Applicants can propose disease management planning and contingency planning for emergency and routine morbidity/mortality events, integrate wildlife disease considerations into broader Wildlife Action Plans, create structured surveillance plans, develop carcass disposal protocols and agreements, and build sustainable long-term disease programs. Applicants can also design and implement surveillance systems intended to produce biologically meaningful, statistically useful information at appropriate spatial scales, including environmental surveillance approaches (for example, aquatic sampling for waterborne pathogens). For emergency readiness, eligible actions include emergency response plans; establishing interjurisdictional response capabilities; clarifying roles and cost coverage approaches; developing mutual aid agreements; running tabletop and field exercises; forming incident management teams with wildlife disease expertise; planning for foreign animal disease outbreaks; conducting after-action reviews; using structured decision-making or adaptive management tools during uncertain events; and setting up long-term monitoring to detect recurrence or population-level impacts after an intervention.

The program also allows investments in people, not just plans. Applicants may use funding to hire staff dedicated to wildlife health duties, including biologists and technicians for field detection, sampling, processing, and response, as well as specialized professionals like wildlife veterinarians, ecologists, social scientists, and other relevant expertise. Human dimensions work is explicitly eligible, recognizing that disease management often succeeds or fails based on public acceptance and stakeholder behavior. Projects may examine risk perceptions, tolerance for interventions, which messages and formats are most effective, and how to translate knowledge into action through education campaigns. Conflict resolution and structured stakeholder engagement (such as focus groups, meetings, and social science evaluations) are also allowable.

Several eligible activity categories focus on reducing underlying drivers that make disease impacts worse. This includes actions to increase resilience and protect environmental services, such as reducing interactions among people, domestic animals, and wildlife; building disease resilience components into wildlife plans; using safe harbor agreements where appropriate; collaborating on invasive species prevention/response/control when invasives may act as disease reservoirs; and improving water quality where it affects disease dynamics. The grant can also support information management systems, including funding a data manager, producing reports and maps, converting legacy records into electronic formats, creating a data management plan, and establishing data-sharing strategies across wildlife agencies and with agriculture and public health partners.

Another major theme is making sure authorities, governance, and laboratory support are in place. Eligible actions include inventories and gap analyses of statutory and regulatory frameworks (from detection through recovery), resolving interjurisdictional issues, developing or updating laws/regulations/ordinances, and ensuring agencies have the authorities and organizational capacity to run effective wildlife health programs. Laboratory network and diagnostic service improvements are also eligible, such as strengthening diagnostic networks, expanding diagnostic services, joining regional diagnostic lab services (examples cited include SCWDS and NWDC), and improving logistics and equipment for sample collection, archiving, and storage. Partnership and network-building is encouraged as well, including formalizing partnerships through memoranda of understanding, building inclusive communities of practice across Federal, State, Territorial, and Tribal entities, and engaging citizen scientists to support detection and response.

The opportunity also supports applied research and tool development when it directly improves prevention, surveillance, detection, management, transmission reduction, and resilience, and when it fits an adaptive management approach. Climate adaptation and mitigation tools are called out as eligible, especially efforts that integrate wildlife health data with climate and environmental datasets to identify at-risk species and populations, and analyses of diseases likely to expand under changing climatic conditions. Training is another major allowable cost area, covering both classroom and hands-on courses for biologists, veterinarians, law enforcement officers, volunteers, wildlife rehabilitators, and partners on topics like disease recognition and response, incident management, biosafety/biosecurity, and personal protective equipment, with an emphasis on consistent training across jurisdictions. Wildlife rehabilitation-related improvements are included as well, particularly biosecurity and biosafety upgrades, release protocols to reduce ecosystem impacts, and increased diagnostic capacity for animals coming through rehabilitators.

Two notable constraints and compliance items are highlighted. First, award funds cannot be used for real property acquisition or construction, which means projects need to focus on programmatic capacity, equipment, services, staffing, planning, partnerships, training, and similar non-construction activities. Second, data management is a required element: Tribes are encouraged (but not required) to store wildlife disease data in the USGS WHISPers database, which allows control over data visibility and sharing relationships. Even if WHISPers is not used, each awardee must develop a data management plan, and that plan is due with the first annual report.

Reporting requirements are relatively straightforward but recurring. Each year, awardees must submit an SF-425 financial report along with a short performance narrative (about 1 to 2 pages) describing progress, accomplishments relative to the proposal, and remaining work. At the end of the project, the same two reporting elements are required, covering the entire award term. Reports are due 90 days after the end of the relevant reporting period. The program also requires letters of support from any organization that will be taking action as part of the proposal, underscoring the emphasis on real partnerships and shared execution rather than informal coordination.

Finally, the notice included optional informational webinars scheduled for February 22, March 13, and April 5 (at 3 pm Eastern) via a ZoomGov link. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as a capacity-building and network-building grant for Tribal wildlife health preparedness, meant to strengthen surveillance, diagnostics, response, data systems, governance, and communication so wildlife disease threats can be managed early and collaboratively across jurisdictions, reducing the likelihood that a wildlife outbreak becomes a broader public health emergency.

• The Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "F23AS00139 Zoonotic Disease Initiative - Tribes" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.069.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-02-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-04-20. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $775,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments).

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