Data Analysis: Wild Animal Population

[Hans Chen]

Dear SPSS Lister:

There is a Database which contain the following information from 1949 to
2006 for the Wild Animal Management Area in India:


   1. Success of hunt;
   2. Sex and age of kill;
   3. Number of adults (by sex) seen;
   4. Number of calves seen;
   5. Number of days hunted.

Could you tell me how this info can be used to help monitor wild animal
populations in The Wild Animal Management Area by using SPSS?

Thanks!

[Hector Maletta]

        Chen
        SPSS is just a statistical package. It deals with procedures, not
substance. The substance of your analysis, i.e. the goal and scope of your
research, is to be decided by you, based on your expertise and the nature of
your data. Whatever you may want to do statistically to achieve to goals of
your research, we could probably tell you how SPSS could do it for you.

        By the way, at that point, besides explaining the purpose and design
of your research, you must also tell us in more detail what is the structure
of the data. Apparently, each "case" or "record" in your database
corresponds to one "hunt", i.e. one episode in which a party of people went
out and tried to see or hunt animals in the Wild Animal Management Area,
with various results. You do not explain whether all data correspond to the
same species or they may correspond to different species of animal. You fail
also to explain whether all hunts were equal in size or duration, or they
were different (one person going out on a small area and for one afternoon
in the wild is different from twenty people going out on a wider area and
for an entire week, I suspect), or this information is just missing in the
database.

        Sorry, but unless you first decide what you want to do, and explain
better the nature of the data, we can do very little to help you.

        Hector



        -----Mensaje original-----
De: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] En nombre de SPSS
Chen
Enviado el: 11 November 2006 16:30
Para: [hidden email]
Asunto: Data Analysis: Wild Animal Population

        Dear SPSS Lister:

        There is a Database which contain the following information from
1949 to
        2006 for the Wild Animal Management Area in India:


           1. Success of hunt;
           2. Sex and age of kill;
           3. Number of adults (by sex) seen;
           4. Number of calves seen;
           5. Number of days hunted.

        Could you tell me how this info can be used to help monitor wild
animal
        populations in The Wild Animal Management Area by using SPSS?

        Thanks!

[Zolin, Roxanne (CIV)]

Dear Colleague,
 
I agree with Hector.  
 
But to answer your question, under the right conditions you can use SPSS to test hypotheses.
 
Hypotheses are suppositions about your data in terms of what variables predict what other variables.
 
You have told us about five variables that you have.  With this data you could test hypotheses such as these:
 
H1: Number of days hunted predicts Success of hunt (I am assuming Success means number of animals killed)
H2: Number of days hunted predicts Number of adults seen
H3: Number of days hunted predicts number of calves seen
 
You could use regression analysis these tests.
 
While these hypotheses may not going answer your wildlife question, they may help you learn about the situation.
 
Then, for example, to manage one wild animal population (e.g. water buffalo)  you could graph the Success of hunt, Number of adults seen and Number of calves seen over time to determine if the numbers are going up or down.
 
I hope that this gives you some ideas about how you could apply your  data to the problem using SPSS.  Actually doing these tests takes a lot of knowledge about research methods and SPSS.
 
To answer your question properly you probably need to do the equivalent of a PhD.
 
I hope this helps and good luck with your research!
 
Cheers,
Roxanne
 

________________________________

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion on behalf of SPSS Chenyou c
Sent: Sat 11/11/2006 7:29 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Data Analysis: Wild Animal Population



Dear SPSS Lister:

There is a Database which contain the following information from 1949 to
2006 for the Wild Animal Management Area in India:


   1. Success of hunt;
   2. Sex and age of kill;
   3. Number of adults (by sex) seen;
   4. Number of calves seen;
   5. Number of days hunted.

Could you tell me how this info can be used to help monitor wild animal
populations in The Wild Animal Management Area by using SPSS?

Thanks!