Question

To estimate the size of the grizzly bear population in a national park, rangers tagged and released 12 grizzly bears into the park. A few months later, 2 out of 21 grizzly bears sighted were tagged. Assuming the population of tagged bears in the population, estimate the number of grizzly bears in the population of this national park.

a. 24 grizzly bears
b. 126 grizzly bears
c. 252 grizzly bears
d. 22 grizzly bears

Answer 1

2 out of the 21 bears had tags, which is about the same as 1 out of 10. So, there is approximately 10 bears for every 1 tagged bear. Multiply the number of tagged bears (12) times 10 and you get around 120 bears. So the answer has to be...B) 126