Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Left: SUNO student Raven Williams, who is studying biological science and mathematics, checks a trail camera used to record the number of white-tailed deer who visited a passive feeding station (called a four-poster device). Right: Williams programs the cameras to deploy in the field. For the past five years, Brookhaven Lab has been using these devices, which rub permethrin—a tickicide—onto the necks of the deer as they eat corn. With those devices installed at 14 locations on site, the Lab reduced the tick population by 90 percent. However, filling the posters with corn is time consuming and costly. Last year alone, the deer were fed 77,000 pounds of corn—an amount equivalent to more than $20,000. This summer, Williams is helping start a three-year experiment to see if the amount of corn could be reduced while continuing to effectively control the tick population.