 Closed-population capture-recapture model

A closed-population capture-recapture model assumes the same individuals remain throughout the observations: no births, deaths, immigration, or emigration. Its elementary two-sample version additionally requires retained, correctly recognized marks and a second sample chosen by simple random sampling independently of first-sample membership. Mixing and unchanged capture behavior help make this plausible. Equal individual capture probabilities alone do not guarantee that every size-$C$ subset is equally likely; that stronger sampling assumption gives the hypergeometric distribution. See Barker, §§1.1.1 and 1.1.3: closure, marks, and catchability assumptions.

Unequal catchability, mark loss, and population change can invalidate this capture-recapture model. For example, if especially catchable individuals appear repeatedly, overlap can be inflated and the Lincoln-Petersen estimator can underestimate population cardinality. Lost marks can decrease recorded overlap and increase the same ratio estimator, all else equal. Two samples alone cannot establish that the sampling assumptions hold.