Question

A country in Africa is trying to restore its zebra population and is carefully keeping track of how many zebras are in the area. To do so, local wildlife authorities put tags on 25 zebras and release them. Later, they corral 522 zebras; among those zebras, 18 are tagged. To the nearest whole number, what is the best estimate for the zebra population? *

Answer 1

Let "x" be the total zebra population.

We know that the proportion of tagged zebras to the total zebras is the same for both the tagged and corralled groups:

Number of tagged zebras / Total tagged zebras = Number of corralled zebras / Total zebra population

We have the following information:

Number of tagged zebras = 25
Total tagged zebras (initially tagged and released) = 25
Number of corralled zebras (later found in the corral) = 18

Plugging these values into the proportion:

25 / 25 = 18 / x

Now, we can solve for "x":

x = (25 * 18) / 25

x = 18

So, the best estimate for the zebra population is 18 zebras.