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Robust Design Occupancy model: "animal was never released"

PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 5:38 pm
by Jackita83
Hello,

My goal is to build an occupancy model using robust design in MARK. The data came from small mammal trapping on 5 occasions with the traps being opened 3 nights each time. For the analysis, we thus have 5 primary occasions comprised of 3 secondary occasions each. Each trap is considered a sampling site and has its own set of covariates.The problem is that we have multiple traps where we didn't catch any animals during all trapping occasions. Here's an example of the data for a trap where we didn't catch anything: /*T2-S30*/000000000000000 1 T2 Low-BA 0 4.592 2.296 6.888 0 0 7.5 8.75 37.5 37.5 15 2.5 15 15 2.5 2.5 2.5 6.4125;).

This triggers an error warning (Error: the animal was never released) and aborts the analysis. We can't get rid of the traps where we didn't catch anything, because we want to know what didn't the animals "like" about these trap sites.

Any help on how to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.