The population of a certain species of deer in a nature reserve can be modeled by the function , where is the estimated population after years, and corresponds to the beginning of the year 2010. The model is valid for . If the graph of is plotted in the -plane, which of the following is the best interpretation of the -intercept of the graph in this context?
The estimated population of deer increased by 8% each year.
The maximum estimated population of deer during the 10 years was 1,200.
The estimated population of deer at the beginning of 2010 was 1,200.
The estimated population of deer after 10 years was 1,200.
