statistics with jaguars

Following a field trip to Péru of my friend Kerrie Mengersen and other researchers from QUT, to study jaguar population, The Australian ran a story about this most exotic expedition. (Although Kerrie is familiar with exotic topics, since she also worked on cheetahs in Africa and orang-utans in Indonesia.) While the newspaper does not get into the details of the mathematical model used to describe the jaguar population, it turns quite lyrical about the expedition itself and the interactions with the local human populations. In the end it does not sound that terrible that the group could not see any jaguar, despite evidence of a strong presence in the area, as everyone came back unscathed!