A farmer wanted to estimate how many moles were living on his property, so he marked 39 of them with tags. A few weeks later, th
e farmer drove around his property and noticed 21 tagged moles out of the 420 moles he counted. To the nearest whole number, what is the best estimate for the mole population?
The farmer noticed 21 tagged moles out of the 420 moles he counted. This means that he counted 420-21 moles that didn't have a tag. The answer to that is 399. Then, the ratio is 399:21. That simplifies it to 19:1. Since he tagged 39, 19x39 would be the answer, which is 741.
