Nonparametric methods for population size estimation

Total population size estimation is an important problem in many social and biological sciences where data collection is a challenge. This task is performed using a special data collection procedure called capture-recapture.

Capture-recapture was first used by Graunt (Krebs et al., 2014) to estimate the total population of England. Petersen (1896) was the first to apply this method on animal population. The basic set-up involves capturing a subset of animals from the population of interest, tagging and releasing them back into the population.