Validity of the Removal Method for Fish Population Estimation in a Small Lake

Abstract
During the process of rendering a small Canadian Shield lake fishless, we evaluated the suitability of the removal method for estimating the abundance of lake fishes. Our total catch of 133 fish during the netting program provided a lower bound for absolute abundance of all species. There are serious problems in applying the removal method, at least to lake fish species, because catchability can remain constant, decline, or increase during a removal period. Although three models applicable to the removal method provided excellent fit to the data, abundance estimates were far less than known population sizes.

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