Simulations of a model for the Northern Spotted Owl

Abstract

In this paper, a branching process model of the Northern Spotted Owl is simulated. We focus on the time until extinction. It is shown how an approximation of the model with a multivariate autoregressive process works well near the equilibrium, but does not give a good estimate of the time until extinction. We also show that introduction of randomness in some of the parameters previously assumed to be constants shortens the time until extinction considerably.