Estimating population size from a removal experiment

Paul Yip and Daniel Y. T. Fong

Statistics & Probability Letters, 1993, vol. 16, issue 2, 129-135

Abstract: A modification of a removal experiment is proposed here to estimate the size of a closed population. The modification is that a known number of marked (or tagged) animals is released into the population before the experiment commences. The removal process is observed for a fixed number of occasions and the removal probabilities are allowed to be time dependent. We derive a maximum likelihood estimator for the population size. The existence and unimodality of the estimator are examined. A simulation study is given on the performance of the estimator under various conditions of the removal process. A goodness of fit test is given to test the homogeneous mixing assumption between the marked and the unmarked ones.

Keywords: Maximum; likelihood; estimation; removal; experiment; time; dependent; capture; probability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
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