Using visual encounter data to improve capture–recapture abundance estimates

Capture-recapture studies are widely used in ecology to estimate population sizes and demographic rates. In some capture-recapture studies, individuals may be visually encountered but not identified. For example, if individual identification is only possible upon capture and individuals escape capture, visual encounters can result in failed captures where individual identities are unknown. In such cases, the data consist of capture histories with known individual identities, and counts of failed captures for individuals with unknown identities. These failed captures are ignored in traditional capture-recapture analyses that require known individual identities. Here we show that if animals can be encountered at most once per sampling occasion, failed captures provide lower bounds on population size that can increase the precision of abundance estimates. Analytical results and simulations indicate that visual encounter data improve abundance estimates when capture probabilities are low, and when there are few repeat surveys. We present a hierarchical Bayesian approach for integrating failed captures and auxiliary encounter data in statistical capture-recapture models. This approach can be integrated with existing capture-recapture models, and may prove particularly useful for hard to capture species in data-limited settings.