ERROR - Animal was never released

[wassmer]

Hi everybody,

I worked through the tutorials but get stuck when running the recommended analyses with my own data and the sample data. With an error dialog "Animal was never released:

Program MARK - Survival Rate Estimation with Capture-Recapture Data
gfortran(dble) Vers. 9.0 Jan 2019 14-Jun-2021 12:38:32 Page 001
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This version was compiled by GCC version 9.2.0 using the options:
-cpp -iprefix c:\tdm-gcc-64\gcc64\gcc\bin\../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/9.2.0/
-D_MT -U_REENTRANT -D IEEE -D DBLEPRECISION -m64 -mtune=generic -march=x86-64
-mthreads -O2 -fimplicit-none -fbounds-check -funroll-loops -ftree-vectorize
-ffpe-summary=invalid,zero,overflow,underflow -fno-unsafe-math-optimizations
-frounding-math -fsignaling-nans -fopenmp.

This problem will use 2 of 2 possible threads.


INPUT --- proc title Rainbow2019;

CPU Time for the last procedure was 0.01 seconds.


INPUT --- proc chmatrix occasions=5 groups=1 etype=Live mixtures=1
INPUT --- Nodes=101 NoHist hist=300;

INPUT --- glabel(1)=Group 1;

INPUT --- time interval 1 1 1 1;

ERROR -- Animal was never released: 0000010000

I am on Windows 10 Pro

Thanks in advance!

Tom

Tom

[cooch]

Invariably this points to a problem with your input (.inp) file (say, forgetting the semi-colon on the end of a line). Post the top few lines of it here. Or, send it to me offline and I'll have a look.

[jlaake]

Note that it says 5 occasions and your capture history is much longer. That capture history has 00000 for first 5 occasions which is not released in first 5 occasions. Did you mean to be using live dead model with 2 positions for each occasion? Also this is not a software problem!

[wassmer]

Thanks for the replies. Life recaptures only - please let me know what I do wrong. As I received the same error using the dipper example file, I assumed it was a software issue on my computer. Sorry for misposting...

Thanks in advance!

Tom

Here is my input file

/* Rainbow Scarab Data 2019, Live Recapture, -- 10 occasions */
1000000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0100000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0010000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0001000000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000101000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000100000 1;
0000010000 1;
0000010000 1;
0000010000 1;
0000010000 1;
0000010000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001100 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000001000 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000100 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000010 1;
0000000001 1;

[jlaake]

The input you show says 10 occasions but the snippet of output said 5 occasions. You must have specified 5 occasions when you set up in MARK. The dipper data has 7 occasions. BTW the data you show had only one recapture, so don't expect useful results.

[wassmer]

Thanks jlaake!

I thought MARK reads this from the inp file. There should be two recatches. I am aware that that is very low but that is what it is. Are MRR studies restricted to a certain percentage of recatches to be reliable? Should I use a different model such as POPAN?

Thanks again!

Tom

[cooch]

Thanks jlaake!

I thought MARK reads this from the inp file.

MARK *does* read the encounter history from the .inp file, but MARK *does not* read the length of the encounter history string to determine the number of occasions. There are any number of reasons for this but, regardless, you (user) need to manually set the number of encounters, appropriate for your data (in the .inp file), and the data type. MARK defaults to 5 occasions. If your encounter history string <> 5, and you don't *manually* adjust the number of occasions (if you don't know how, (re)-read Chapter 3), MARK will throw an error.

There should be two recatches. I am aware that that is very low but that is what it is. Are MRR studies restricted to a certain percentage of recatches to be reliable? Should I use a different model such as POPAN?

Thanks again!

Tom

If you have a total of only 2 recaptures, out of a much larger sample of marked individuals, there is absolutely nothing you'll be able to do - no models, no estimates, nothing. Sorry, but to resurrect a quote from Darryl MacKenzie: "These methods are statistical, not magical". You have, in effect, no data. Therefore, in reality, you have nothing on which to base any inference, if inference is based on multiple encounters with known (marked) individuals.

[wassmer]

Thanks cooch,

I marked and (re)captured these beetles every week over their entire phenological occurrence and that is what I got in year 1. In year 2, I re-caught 6 of 130 beetles - I did not try to analyze the second year in MARK yet. These are real data for a highly understudied taxon of animals. If they cannot be analyzed by any MRR method, would it be accurate to say: The low number of recaptures indicates either a large population, substantial mobility, or high mortality – or a combination of these factors.

Thanks in advance!

Tom

[cooch]

Thanks cooch,

I marked and (re)captured these beetles every week over their entire phenological occurrence and that is what I got in year 1. In year 2, I re-caught 6 of 130 beetles - I did not try to analyze the second year in MARK yet. These are real data for a highly understudied taxon of animals.

Queue my second favourite quote (after Darryl's 'statistics, not magic' of course): 'The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.' - John Tukey.

In other words, even with more data, it may not always be possible to get a reasonable answer. Even worse, in the absence of data (and 2 recaptures in one year, and 6 in another is de facto 'no data'), there is precious little you can do, no matter how motivated you might be (either personally, or because you're working with a taxon that is 'understudied'.

If they cannot be analyzed by any MRR method, would it be accurate to say: The low number of recaptures indicates either a large population, substantial mobility, or high mortality – or a combination of these factors.

Thanks in advance!

Tom

There are any number of plausible reasons for the low number of recaptures -- the 3 you've listed are some of the 'main' reasons. You (biologist) need to consider which are most plausible.