A Question of Interest to Game Managers Is the Hunting

question 29

Essay

A question of interest to game managers is the hunting strategy of predators. Do they just take the first prey that comes along, or are the selective? In a study of winter prey selection in a National Park, radio-tagged cougars were observed to have killed prey according to the table below. At the most recent census in the National Park there were about 3,500 white-tailed deer, 1,000 elk, and 500 moose. Do these data provide sufficient evidence at the .05 level that the cougars are not selecting their prey at random? That is, is there evidence that the proportion of deer, elk, and moose killed by cougars are not in the same proportion as in the park population? Justify your response with an appropriate statistical analysis.

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