BROWNIE- program to estimate survival and recovery rates for two age classes from band-recovery data

The calculation of the various point estimates and their associated standard errors and covariances and tests of hypotheses is a laborious task, even for small sets of banding and recovery data. The computational requirements are large when the Maximum Likelihood equations must be solved numerically. Rounding errors can become significant and mathematical errors are nearly unavoidable if the calculations are performed by hand. To alleviate these problems, two comprehensive computer programs were developed to allow estimation and testing to be done inexpensively, accurately, and quickly. These are extremely powerful computer programs allowing the more sophisticated user to make ML estimates and efficient tests based on more complex models. Program BROWNIE is an old FORTRAN program to estimate survival and recovery rates for two age classes from band-recovery data. A more modern, flexible program for this type of analysis is program MARK (a Windows program written by Gary White) which is available at the following web site: http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/~gwhite/mark/mark.htm.