Separating columns containing descriptive and capture-recapture data

I'm thinking that dplyr::select_if() might be a good solution for you, but can't quite tell from the info you've given us.

Here do you mean rows or columns?

Could you please turn this into a self-contained reprex (short for reproducible example)? It doesn't have to be all of your data by any means (in fact, it shouldn't be!), but a dummy sample of what things look like will help us to help you.

If you've never heard of a reprex before, you might want to start by reading the tidyverse.org help page. The reprex dos and don'ts are also useful.

You can install it with

install.packages("reprex")
What to do if you run into clipboard problems

If you run into problems with access to your clipboard, you can specify an outfile for the reprex, and then copy and paste the contents into the forum.

reprex::reprex(input = "fruits_stringdist.R", outfile = "fruits_stringdist.md")

For pointers specific to the community site, check out the reprex FAQ, linked to below.