North American River Otter Pup Feeding Technique and Population Considerations

by Ryanne Sullivan

Submitted : Spring 2011

One of my supervisors at the Florida Aquarium gave me ideas on what I could do and I chose to do the project on the issues involved in Population Management Programs. One of them is raising pups taken from the wild. For the pup rearing, based on their weight, stomach capacity one can determine the amount of food feedings that are needed. A procedure was given to determine exactly what is needed. The conclusions that came from this is that as long as the weights are similar than the feedings will be close to one another.

Next is to find an equation that could be used in determining growth depending on the data table give. Determine a graph and find which equation could best describe the data. After that, formulate the conclusions and recommendations. The equation decided upon to best describe the graph is the logistic equation due to the density dependence in the ecosystem. To determine the equation, we first must determine the growth rate. From there, refer to the table and graph in the Appendices to fit the data into the equation. The graph is what is given the idea on the logistic equation. There is a steady increase in the data.

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