by Susana García » Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:22 am
Hola again,
Thanks for the quick answer,
We've been using Photo-identification to identify and resight the animals. I have 9 years of data with a different number of trapping-photographing sessions each year (ranging from 4 to 8 sessions). Some of the animals have been identified in year 1 and resighted in years 3,4, and 6 and never again... some others were identified in year 2 or 3 and dissapear and appear years after without any pattern. There are several reasons to explain this; (1)The study area doesn't cover the whole distribution range of the population, (2) the animals go outside the study area and come back later, (3) the animals stay in the study area but aren't photographed in certain occassion due to shy behaviour towards the boat or any other reason....But i can't distinguish if only 1, 2 or the 3 aspects are actually occurring in my case.
Some experienced people suggested the robust design model to account for this "movements", so I'm just learning how this model works and if I can use it.....
Susana