Number of Encounter Occasions

The number of encounter occasions is the number of occasions where animals were captured. The number of time-specific survival rates that can be estimated depends on the data type. As examples, for live recapture data, the number of trapping occasions would be entered as the number of occasions. For dead recovery data, the number of recovery occasions is specified as the number of encounter occasions. For both live recaptures and dead recoveries, the number of encounter occasions is maximum of the number of live recapture occasions and the number of dead recovery occasions. That is, both these types of encounter occasions furnish the intervals for survival estimates, so the maximum number of intervals that are possible from the available data is specified. For known fate data, the number of encounter occasions is the number of intervals for which data are available. For closed captures, the number of trapping occasions is the number of encounter occasions. See Encounter Histories File for more details on how data entry relates to the number of occasions.