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Cara is a farmer who has noticed a lot of snails eating her vegetables and wants to estimate the number of snails on her land. She sets up traps and catches 3838 snails. She marks the snails, releases them, and replaces the traps. Later, when she returns to the traps, she counts 170170 snails, 1717 of which are marked. To the nearest whole number, what is the best estimate for the snail population?

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Q. Cara is a farmer who has noticed a lot of snails eating her vegetables and wants to estimate the number of snails on her land. She sets up traps and catches 3838 snails. She marks the snails, releases them, and replaces the traps. Later, when she returns to the traps, she counts 170170 snails, 1717 of which are marked. To the nearest whole number, what is the best estimate for the snail population?
  1. Set up proportion: Step 11: Set up the proportion based on the capture-recapture method. Cara marked and released 3838 snails, then later captured 170170 snails, 1717 of which were marked. We set up the proportion: marked snails in second capturetotal snails in second capture=marked snails releasedtotal snail population\frac{\text{marked snails in second capture}}{\text{total snails in second capture}} = \frac{\text{marked snails released}}{\text{total snail population}} 17170=38p\frac{17}{170} = \frac{38}{p}
  2. Solve for p: Step 22: Solve for p using cross multiplication.\newlineCross multiply to find p:\newline17×p=38×17017 \times p = 38 \times 170\newline17p=646017p = 6460
  3. Isolate pp: Step 33: Divide both sides by 1717 to isolate pp.\newlinep=646017p = \frac{6460}{17}\newlinep=380p = 380

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