Mammal-Population-Density

This project will analyze the mammal population density in four different U.S. National Parks to understand which park would be the best choice for observing mammals.

Introduction

Problem

Animal observation in their natural habitat isn't an easy task, and choosing the right place to go is a key factor for success. But the United States has over 60 national parks, given that some of them have over 52,000 km², choosing the right place to observe animals can become a fatiguing process.

Project Goal

In order to provide some light on the process of choosing the right place to observe animals, the present project aims to analyze which of four given U.S. National Parks (Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Yosemite National Park, Bryce National Park, and Yellowstone National Park) an individual can have the highest probability of observing mammals in their natural habitat. The main factor chosen to determine a high probability of observing mammals is population density.

Data

The project data consists of the following:

• species_info.csv - contains data about different species and their conservation status;
• observations.csv- holds recorded sightings of different species at several national parks for the past 7 days;
• park_area.csv - has the total area of the national parks.

How to navigate through the project code and visualizations

• The Mammal Population Density file contains the main finds, visualizations, codes, and explanations.
• The Appendix file has the complete code, exploratory steps, cleaning, and NaN filling process, with explanations of each step and decisions made through the analysis process.

Main finds

• The four national parks combined have over 15497.66km²;
• In the past seven days was recorded 162.608 mammals observations among the four parks;
• Though Yellowstone National Park has the biggest number of mammals observations registered, Bryce National Park has the highest density of mammals population based on the observations registered.

Further analysis

• Is the population density of other animal categories higher in the Bryce National Park as well?
• Which variables contribute to the high mammal population density in Bryce National Park?