Quantifying Unequal Catchability and its Effect on Survival Estimates in an Actual Population

(1) Simulation models, in combination with a test of equal catchability, were used to quantify the effect of heterogeneity of catchability on survival estimates obtained by capture-recapture methods from an actual population. (2) The biases in the estimates were found to be negligible although the test revealed a considerable degree of heterogeneity. (3) This suggests that the use of such tests to determine the appropriatene8s of particular estimation models to actual data may be highly misleading. (4) Simulation may often be a useful and relatively inexpensive method for exploring alternative models.