Question

A farmer wanted to estimate how many moles were living on his property, so he marked 24 of them with tags. A few weeks later, the farmer drove around his property and noticed 18 tagged moles out of the 330 moles he counted. To the nearest whole number, what is the best estimate for the mole population?

Answer 1

The answer is 70 moles

Explanation:

For the farmer,

Total no of Moles = 330

No of marked moles with tags = 24

No of unmarked moles = 330 - 24 = 306

Few weeks later,

No of tagged moles found = 18

No of tagged moles not found,

= marked moles with tags - tagged moles found

= 24 - 18 = 6

Therefore, if for every 24 tagged moles, there are 6 moles found,

288 tagged moles = 24 X 12 (lots) = 288

For moles found = 6 X 12 (lots) = 72

To the nearest whole number,

The best estimate for the mole population would be 70 moles