This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial item and services in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 12 through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-26, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION; QUOTES ARE BEING REQUESTED AND A SEPARATE WRITTEN SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED. Solicitation Number DG133F-08-RQ-1093 is issued as a request for quotation. The associated North America Industry Classification System code is 541990. The government estimate for this work is $99,600. This combined synopsis/solicitation is in support of the Collection of data on the blue and humpback whales. The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Protected Resources, is interested in awarding a Firm Fixed contract for Collection of data on Blue and Humpback Whales. The work shall be performed in accordance with the RFQ Statement of Work (SOW) entitled, Collection of data on Blue and Humpback Whales, August 14, 2008. The contractor shall respond by providing a technical approach and pricing. The contractor shall provide support for all Contract Line item numbers (CLINS) as described in the solicitation. The contractor shall demonstrate its ability to conduct photographic mark-recapture studies of blue and humpback whales and to estimate population size using photo-identification data, and submit resumes for any key personnel. The contractor shall address sample coverage and analytical methods it proposes to employ for this work and have a valid permit from http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/.  Sample Coverage shall address, at a minimum, an evaluation of the adequacy of blue and humpback whale identification photographs that are available to the contractor for the purpose of estimating population size and population growth rates. Sample coverage shall be based on geographic coverage (number and spread of sample locations), temporal coverage (number of sample years), sample size (number of individual whales identified from each area for each year), and protocol to achieve random sampling of all age and sex classes.  All responsible sources will be considered.  The resulting purchase order shall be negotiated on a firm fixed price basis. The award will be made on a best value basis in accordance with the evaluation criteria described in the solicitation. The provisions and clauses set forth in the solicitation may be downloaded at http://www.acqnet.gov/far. FAR clauses 52.212-1, 52.212-2, 52.212-3, 52.212-4, and 52.215-5 are included in the solicitation, see attached RFQ.  The Government will make a single award order containing fixed unit-prices resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. See Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOps) Notes 25 at http://www.fbo.gov/Numbered_Notes.html. All responsible sources that meet the requirements and provide the services listed above may respond to this combined synopsis/solicitation.