Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2017 July 25

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July 25

Ant-covered food

I sometimes leave food on the table for too long before eating it. The dish would get crawled by ants by the time I come. In that case to avoid wasting the food, I would blow wind to scare them away. For the last few remaining ones that stay too long, I either remove them using a tissue or blow violently to fling them out. So, are there any changes in the food, and are they significant enough to even think about it? Because this has happened several times, I want to make sure it's ok, although I suppose it is. Thank you in advance! 123.16.110.210 (talk) 07:08, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Ants are relatively clean insects, by observation. They don't regurgitate spit onto the food in-situ to dissolve it, as they seem to prefer cutting it up and taking it back to the nest. BUT. They walk over the place before they walk on your food. I don't think you are taking an enormous risk, although I'm sure the scaredy cats will try to tell you otherwise. Your biggest problem is likely to be crunchy ant surprise, a dish often accompanied by nasty bites to the inside of the mouth. Greglocock (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

The risk from their feet is not as much as you might think. They groom themselves with their antiseptic saliva very regularly. (It's neat to watch. They're like tiny cats.) Straight Dope:Are Ants Disease Carriers.

ApLundell (talk) 14:28, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Ants are not, AFAIK, disease vectors.

Now my 2 cents: obviously my own hands, dishware and even the food left on the table itself are already covered in invisible matter (microbes and the like) no better than anything ants may bring with them (I wouldn't say the same for flies or rodents). so, I personally don't care about ants, as opposed to flies or rodents.

BTW ants taste like a kind of crunchy bit of vinegar (because of formic acid) ; you may find it pleasant ... or not. So if some ants remains, well, i remove them with care or not depending on whether the acid would spoil the dish taste or not (did you ever tried honey with ants? i did; that's not awful, but i have rather honey without not; but not for health reason, anyway.

Gem fr (talk) 12:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Some people regard ants as a delicacy.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that while the ants may not have MADE the food unfit to eat, they may serve as an indicator that it is. That is, it normally would take some time for a scout to happen upon the food, then bring all his cronies there to the feast. During that time bacteria are growing in it. So, if it's a type of food which tends to develop toxins when it rots, like meat, being covered with ants may serve as an indicator that you should avoid eating it, or at the very least cut off the exposed parts. StuRat (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Clearly you have never encountered ants in this situation. They have very effective communication systems based on pheromones. Ants will seek out food and cover it in minutes, and the idea that you may have put food down and then rely on ants to inidicate its safety is stretching it a bit. Richard Avery (talk) 07:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

You may mean on a picnic, where you may put the food down quite near an anthill. However, the OP stated this is on a table, which I assume to be indoors, and assuming the ants need to come in from outside, it could take quite some time for food to be covered with them, considered the time for a scout to find the food, the time for him to leave a scent trail back to the nest, and the time for the ants to return on that scent trail. StuRat (talk) 18:38, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Stu, as usual, enough with the speculation on a topic you are only casually familiar with (or any topic for that matter). First, if you live anywhere aside from the Arctic circle/Antarctica, chances are the ants don't need to "come in"; some are almost certainly already present somewhere in your house, unless you happen to live in a high rise. Second, ants don't always need to chance upon food randomly with a scout; most species have highly sensitive chemoreceptors in various places on their body which can allow them to sense food at a distance. Third, they don't always have to rely on pheromone marking to recruit other workers; they have a bevy of other strategies, including tandem running; more so, the pheremones themsleves can be incredibly powerful and cover great distances fast (we don't always smell them because of our scale or because they are just outside of our olfaction range). Anyway, I'm not sure the places you've lived that you've never observed the phenomena directly, but Richard is quite right; even inside, ants can be on your food in a matter of minutes in certain locales; the food certainly doesn't need to have been out long enough to have turned! Snow ^{let's rap} 20:19, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Wow! I really don't expect to be replied so quickly and by so many people like this. So I suppose there is no need to concern about the situation more than other risks, as I have expected. Thanks everyone! 123.16.104.104 (talk) 03:30, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I think my fellow refdeskers have gone too speculative here, not sourcing a single thing before telling you that your activity is more or less safe. (And in so doing, also forgotten that we are not supposed to answer questions which impact even vaguely upon medical/health advice, no matter how trivial the matter and how confident they are in the answer). So I'm put in the awkward position of choosing between doing what we were all meant to do (not say anything) or giving you a word of caution you need to consider. Not all ants are equal, some are toxic and many will sting or bite if threatened. I wonder if those commenting above momentarily forgot about such things... And the last place you want a reaction to a sting is in the the oral cavity.

Now, if your question is whether you can expect longterm health effects from having eaten a few ants in the past, then I would say you have reason to feel in the clear; because of the very slight mass of the ants, any long-term repercussions are unlikely in the extreme, and more acute problems (toxic shock, allergic response to ingestion or sting) would have been known to you at the time, of course. That said, I wouldn't make a habit of this, especially if you are not particularly familiar with your local species. As we all know, ants have been consumed as a treat in some locales for a long time...but by people who know the local species and which make for good eating. I would no more recommend eating a species of insect you aren't deeply familiar with than I would recommend that you eat a wild mushroom you didn't recognize. Lastly, it's worth noting that ants do sometimes carry parasites, some of which are known to be transferable to larger fauna that eat the ant. No known cases of zoonotic transfer to humans (that I've ever heard of, anyway) but food for thought if you are going to go munching on novel species. Snow ^{let's rap} 08:51, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

(For some reason my IP has changed. 123.16.104.104 (talk) 03:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC))

I agree with Snow Rise that you should be careful with eating the ants themselves: while some types of ants are a delicacy, other species aren't good for you to eat, or require additional preparation. I also confirm that in many buildings, ants can find food very quickly, so ants aren't an indication that the food has been left in the open for too long.

Nevertheless, StuRat does have a point in that some things other than ants might be of concern here. Flying insects, such as flies, moths, wasps, can also find food quickly if you leave it on your table. They're less sanitary than ants, and they are more difficult to notice. When ants find your food, they collectively won't leave it alone until either you remove the food or they take all the removable bits, but other insects may have found the food and left without a visible trace. – b_jonas 20:31, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Does sport oxydate us?

Doing more sport implies higher general oxygen consume? Is that bad?

"Oxidation" is not exactly the right word, but Yes. Aerobic_exercise does increase oxygen consumption. That's not bad. In most situations it's good for you. ApLundell (talk) 14:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Oxidative stress does cause damage, and exercise will tend to increase that. However, we seem to have a defect in our genetic "design" that regular exercise is required to make our bodies function properly (not really a defect, but rather an adaptation to an environment where starvation was a huge threat). If we can figure out the method hibernating animals use to avoid that, then we can skip the exercise, but, for now, doing so causes muscular atrophy and other problems, so we need to exercise. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oxidation is one of those unfortunately-chosen words from back in the mists of time that frequently leads modern students of science astray (see etymological fallacy). Oxidation has very little to do with the element oxygen, excepting that oxygen is itself a decent oxidizing agent. Oxidative stress in the body is not due to atmospheric oxygen and our normal breathing; rather it is due to the presence of free radicals in the body which can convert normal oxygen to a reactive oxygen species. Increased oxygen in the body due to sports/exercise really has nothing to do with it, as increased ground state triplet oxygen doesn't do much of anything in that regard. --Jayron32 15:28, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with most of your post, and particularly your last sentence. See [1]. StuRat (talk) 15:40, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

So corrected. Thank you for that! --Jayron32 15:43, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

You're quite welcome ! (And notice I didn't feel the need to insult you, I just said I disagree, and provided my proof. Please do the same.) StuRat (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I disagreed, too, but couldn't provide ref so i stayed quiet; now, Oxidative stress, free radical, reactive oxygen species and triplet oxygen remains useful regarding the question, don't they? Gem fr (talk) 15:53, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I've never stated that they were not. --Jayron32 16:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

bad for what?

Apnea is obviously a situation where higher general oxygen consumption will kill you faster, so you try to lower oxygen use. And while the lung can get you as much oxygen from the air as you need, the blood may have trouble transporting it, hence the use of Hemopoietic growth factor for doping in sport to get higher VO2 max.

In between those two extremes, well, humans evolved in an oxygen-rich environment and adapted to it. The level of oxygen in the body is controlled so as to remain where it belongs (Homeostasis, Homeostasis#Blood_partial_pressure_of_oxygen_and_carbon_dioxide, Homeostasis#Blood_oxygen_content), whether you use lot of it (high exercise level) or few (sleeping). Even, if need be, your level of activity will adapt to oxygen availability (somewhat).

Gem fr (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Open circuit power draw of an SMPS

I have a mobile phone charger without any sort of LED to say that it's connected to the mains supply. How much power is it using when nothing is connected to it? It is one with a USB port at the other side.

Of course, I don't expect anyone to provide an exact figure without further details, but I'll add that it is about two years old. Are there easy ways that I could find an exact figure?--Leon (talk) 15:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

• Well, the question seems to have been asked (and kind of answered) at [2] already. Not sure if that answers your question (the order of magnitude is about 1W, but there is some large spread). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:36, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Standby power suggests for a modern charger the answer should be 0.5W or less if it's sold in the EU or California. Nil Einne (talk) 16:11, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

According to No load power there is theoretically a star system. I say theoretically because I don't think I've ever actually seen it used even with Samsung or LG phones/charges but I must admit I've never looked that closely. Nil Einne (talk) 16:14, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm a little dubious about the No load power article. The only reference is a dead link that does not appear in wayback.

The line "The no-load power contribution to a country’s household energy demands is thought to be considerable" seems particularly suspect to me. Considerable? A few phone chargers and power-strips with nothing connected to them? ApLundell (talk) 17:21, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree it's not very good. But I just noticed it mentions an EU code of conduct. Sure enough a quick search finds [3] [4] which suggests to me it probably should be either 0.150W or 0.075W for any signatory. I don't actually know who are signatories although it's possible all of these participants are [5]. One of the things not well discussed in either article that I noticed is there has been a fairly big drop in wasted no load power since everyone moved away from simple linear power supplies to using switch moded power suppliess although the primary reason for that was IIRC because of the price of ironcopper. Nil Einne (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

This one has an oscillator and a shutdown circuit, which disables the oscillator over the Opto-isolator device when the output voltage is reached.

Actually this [6] is very long but seems to be implying the Minimum energy performance standard in Australia and NZ did contribute to the demise of linear power supplies there. I'm sure I've read before that the primary reason for the switch from linear to switch mode power supplies was the price of copper (and possibly iron) but I'm having trouble finding it again although [7] does mention the price of copper albeit for PSUs for control systems and seems to suggest at low currents linear power supplies are still cheaper. In any case, it may be both energy savings and the price of copper (and iron?) were factors. And maybe not just price rises but reduced costs for the components needed for SMPS. Nil Einne (talk) 19:23, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Also the EPA restricts maximum power consumption on stand-by devices. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:50, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

If you're interested in this sort of thing you might consider buying a Kill A Watt to measure the power drawn by various devices. It's not usually sensitive enough to measure standby power but still is fun (well, at least for us nerdy types) and useful. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:43, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Standby power drain on cheap usb devices can be ridiculously high. First thing I would check, is leave it plugged in for a couple of hours and see if it is at all warm to the touch. That will give you a very rough clue if the thing is sucking juice. If it feels stone cold it's probably not consuming much. Vespine (talk) 06:31, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Birds eating fried potatoes

Why do many bird species found in urban areas like fried potatoes so much? I've seen gulls attack people for French fries, and I've encountered a family of ravens who love tater tots (even preferring them over peanuts). It doesn't seem like any food they'd find in the wild would be similar in appearance, texture, or nutritional value, so why do birds go for this sort of human food? 2602:306:321B:5970:A883:9889:9D93:BBC1 (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it tastes good to them. And keep in mind that some birds (crows, for example) will eat pretty much anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

(OP here) That's true, gulls will eat anything! But in my experience, at least, they and ravens seem to really like fried potato products, and I"m wondering why they seem to especially like these.2602:306:321B:5970:9560:D613:AD37:85EC (talk) 21:12, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Why fat is a bird's best friend. Alansplodge (talk) 21:16, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Fried potatoes provide very high nutrition. Theres oil or fat from frying, providing long time energy and much carbohydrates for the quick power and other ingredients, see Potato#Nutrition. Cooking or frying makes the ingredients more efficient for nutrition. Such food is still more powerful. Already to fat to fly? --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 21:26, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it does also have something to do with the shape of the food they "normally" eat and how their ingestive anatomy, physiology and behavior had evolved before the advent of McDonald's ... Worms and other longish invertebrates might indeed seem "similar in appearance" too. A New Scientist article, "Birds prefer to eat at outdoor cafes with slow plate-clearing", writes "The shape of the food is important too, with Eurasian jackdaws partial to long French fries and herring gulls diving for hot dogs". This observation, among many others, was made by Paul Haemig, an animal ecologist who studied birds and their fast-food behavior, for example in "Ecology and phylogeny of birds foraging at outdoor restaurants in Sweden". ---Sluzzelin talk 21:37, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

(OP here) Interesting link, thanks! 01:25, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that the shape of the food being long and skinny may not just be a preference, but may be all they can swallow. While birds of prey are able to rip food apart with their talons, some other birds may not be able to. So, that leaves food that can be swallowed whole. StuRat (talk) 03:27, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

What is the implication for bird feeding enthusiasts? I buy cracked corn, shuck sunflower seeds and make sugar syrup for the hummingbirds. Is there anything wrong with it? Thanks, - --AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:23, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

You will probably be shocked but since you asked so very specific: Infact its the crushing, the crunchiness, that reminds us of eating insects and Birds love to eat insects like nothing else, just as we loved eating insects like nothing else some multiple thousand years ago. Hope you will still enjoy your bag of "pure crunch" chips. --Kharon (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

P.S.:If you are freeminded, maybe even give insects (or spiders) a try , since they are said to be very healthy food ontop of being crunchy (and even free for everyone who manages to grab em) :D --Kharon (talk) 23:26, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

And don't forget Crunchy Frog. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you guys mean. Where am I going to get the insects, worms and frogs? I don't mind spending money on them though. I am not sure my birds will be interested, quail for instance. They mostly eat cracked corn spread on the ground. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 23:59, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

No wonder you never find any. Unfortunately you are far to slow to compete with them birds in finding and eating insects. So sneakily follow them, remember the place and try your luck later on, when them birds check the other spot!! --Kharon (talk) 00:57, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

The mention of both ravens and jackdaws made me wonder about crows. Well, if crows like French fries, it appears they like fish better! [8] They'll settle for wet French fries though [9] ... and there are more of them just eating them however they can scrounge them from the trash. Wnt (talk) 01:00, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

(OP here) I have seen crows dipping bread in a puddle; maybe that's how they figured out fishing. As an aside, herons fish with bread but I'm pretty sure they don't eat it. 2602:306:321B:5970:AC9C:C42E:DAFD:280A (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Crows (or raven) seem a special breed of birds. Astonishing near human like intelligent a recent study [10] found out. Not clear if they are intelligent enough to transcend from their nature but obviously smart enough to make choices that imply some real meditation. --Kharon (talk) 07:23, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Animal population control

I am aware that controlling the deer population may involve introducing natural predators (wolves, humans) or introducing birth control. Does are injected a contraceptive vaccine to prevent fawns from being born. I am just wondering if it's possible to use the same kind of contraception on the human population to prevent most females of childbearing age from reproducing, especially those in their early twenties as they tend to be highly fertile. Deer and humans are both mammals. Can they use the same contraception? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:19, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

In addition to the eugenics aspect of that idea for humans, where did you see that female deer are injected with anything? There are millions of those creatures running around, and they can be very elusive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Sub-cutaneously injected contraceptives for humans do exist and have been in use for several decades. In the UK they are colloquially known as "the jag." Of course, they are usually only administered with the consent of the recipient.

Contra Bugs' incredulity, Wildlife contraceptives are also in widespread use, not least for deer species.{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.212.201.233 (talk) 23:44, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I was aware they were being used in relatively small, confined areas. Trying to impact the entire species would be well nigh impossible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I would think fitting does with virtual reality devices and wifi, and bombarding them with WP:SEALIONING by IP users with prison-library internet access would cause mass cervine extinction within a fortnight. μηδείς (talk) 00:43, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

The wildlife contraceptive article gives an amazing figure of $300 to $1000 per deer. And of course, the carrying capacity of the environment stays constant, so someone must be collecting a guaranteed rent of that amount per every one or two homeowners, forever. Homeowners who probably would not say no to a free hunting license. (Too close together to shoot? Fine ... use a clothesline! It works.....) All medicine is a racket, but that seems like a fairly high paying one even for medicine! Wnt (talk) 23:09, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

But since the OP seems to be specifically comparing wildlife contraception to human, I'm not sure how commonly contraceptive implants are used for wildlife nowadays. Particularly for the case for deers which the OP mentions, our article primarily mentions various vaccines. (Implants are mentioned for Tasmanian devils.) [11] mentions implants were used in carnivores but "side effects of the older contraceptive are cancer of the mammary glands, uterus and liver, uterine infections, obesity and male-like behaviour after extended periods of use." Note also although it mentions wildlife, a lot of what it's talking about seems to be in captive populations. Human hormonal contraceptives do have side effects but improvements coming from research combined with adequate medical care afterwards can generally greatly reduce them. Also I'm not sure if the goals are the same. Our article suggests implants last up to 5 years. For quite a few animals this may be enough (although size and other differences may or may not make this harder to achieve) but for others maybe not in which case you either need to replace them (which maybe isn't as much as a problem as I thought, see later) or developer longer lasting ones which may increase the risks. [12] which specifically deals with deer (although also discusses bison and horses) mentions problems due to the hormones entering the food chain. (The earlier source also mentions this as a goal, but not specifically that it was a problem with older contraceptives.)

The replacements seem to have been vaccines especially porcine zona pellucida but also others. These reduce the risks associated with hormonal implants. Per the sources, they can also often be delivered with darts, I'm not sure how easy that is with implants. They evidentally only last a few years so maybe I was wrong on the earlier point. (Most also require at least two shots [13].) However the risks/side effects of accidentally applying the contraceptive again would likely be fairly low whereas if you have a carefully calibrated dose, two implants is going to throw that out of wack. Africats seem to be using more modern implants although again it seems these are mostly for captive populations. I quick search didn't find that much discussion of its use in wild wildlife.

Our article Immunocontraception does mention research in humans. This includes an attempt to use bovine zonae pellucidae in Indonesia, which highlights a point that it's unlikely porcine zona pellucida will be acceptable to many Muslim or Jewish populations. (Yes there has been some acceptance of porcine insuline and similar, but these are clearly medically essential.) Of course bovine zonae pellucidae is likely to be controversial among Hindu populations. But anyway besides that our article highlights another point namely that these contraceptives may not always be that effective. An example is sperm vaccines only beiny 75% effective (although AFAICT these aren't used in other animals either). By comparison IUD with progestogen can be up to 99.8% effective in the first year and hormonal implants are similar. I didn't see figures for immunocontraceptives actually in use although [14] has some and the failure rate there is significantly higher albeit that was a tiny sample size. Since it often isn't so important to completely eliminate fertility when managing wildlife populations, this may not be such a big deal (although there may be concerns about the reason for failures and possible effects this will have on the population long term). By comparison, when we're talking about ordinary use in humans, the goal is generally to eliminate fertility while the product is in use. In other words, Eugenics plans aside, the goals are often somewhat different. I'd also note that some effects like reducing sex drive are mentioned for certain vaccines which are unlikely to be well accepted by humans.

Finally while these vaccines seem to often be temporary, I'm not sure if they're really reversable on demand which tends to be an important goal with human contraceptives. I'm also not sure if fertility actually completely returns or only partially. Notably [15] mentions the possibility of reversal failure after 5-7 years. (Frankly I was surprised it's so short acting as vaccines tends to last a lot longer, I wonder if it will be the same in humans. Then again there's a lot I don't understand here about the immune response.) Sure permanent sterilisation, particularly tubal ligation and vasectomies are used with humans. But while there are some cases like those highlighted below, often in such cases there's an expectation the person is sure of their decision [16]. (Although as that source hightlights, there's probably often a bias in how vasectomies and tubal ligations are treated.) And these vaccines may also occupy an unusual middle ground of possibly being non permanent but not mostly reversable on demand. (Although effectiveness is likely the biggest bugbear, you need to come close to existing options or it's just not going to be considered.)

Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Eugenics never really goes far out of fashion. [17] Wnt (talk) 01:02, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

See also compulsory sterilization. In India in 1976, there was a programme of vasectomy for men and tubal ligation for women, officially in return for various cash or property incentives but many were actually forced by the police. Needless to say, the government lost power at the next election; see The Emergency (India). Alansplodge (talk) 11:07, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

This is done for pigeons [18] by distributing contraceptive-treated seeds. I guess the same sort of thing may exist for deers, you just need a poisoned food distributor

Gem fr (talk) 23:57, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

All the world seems in tune, on a spring afternoon... Wnt (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

All that is relevant only in Sweden though. In saner countries, controlling the deer population is simply done by allowing hunters to shoot some of the deer. – b_jonas 20:19, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

?? The examples cited above seem to be in the US. Nil Einne (talk) 13:44, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that in humans the goal is typically to have the contraceptive not change personality, while in animals we are less concerned with that, and modifying behavior to make them less aggressive may even be part of the goal. Thus, large doses of testosterone blockers are an appropriate form of contraception for many male animals, but not for humans, with some exceptions. StuRat (talk) 14:29, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

One would have to be careful injecting contraceptives in does for it to be safe and effective. If someone set up a deer feeding station, they could have a remote control airgun which would fire a contraceptive implant under the skin of a doe. But the same doe might come back every day, and get a lethal or harmful dose.A ref at the Wikipedia article mentions a dye marker as part of the dart process which reduces the chances of multiple injection in the same year. A RFID chip could be injected or an eartag applied to allow tracking like is done now for cattle. Is there a computer ID imaging system for deer which could positively identify each treated one so the system would know this one has or has not been treated already? The ref about the Fire Island test mentions human volunteers uniquely identifying female deer in the small population thete, but a lot of human manhours runs the cost up to unrealistic number as cited above.It has to be more time cnsuming to get close enough to dart a wild deer than for a hunter to shoot it, and deer hunting is not that easy or quick. At this stage of AI it is doubtful any such system could be fully automatic and without human supervision, since it would be unacceptable to inject curious humans checking out the gadget in the woods. But the world is apparently willing to unleash self-driving cars and trucks, so fa fully AI deer control system is not unimaginable. How could you avoid injecting nursing mothers,or would the hormone not affect the fawns? In the future perhaps a doe could be trapped long enough robotically to do a jab and get a DNA sample for identification purposes and health monitoring. This would not make sense for rural areas where the deer roam freely over thousands of square miles, but there are some carefully maintained deer populations in enclosed parks where it would be easily implemented. Studies have monitored some US areas where without predators and without enough cull via hunting, the deer population has increased to the point that they are sickly and the vegetation is trashed.See US Forest Service, Scientific American and Wisconsin Public Radio reporting research from the U of Wisconsin.. They injure lots of people and destroy lots of cars when they are crossing highways and are hit, a likely consequence of overcrowding in the limited habitat. They spread Lyme disease. Overpopulation of deer can be too much of a good thing, despite the cuteness factor per the Bambi movie. Edison (talk) 17:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Re: "It has to be more time cnsuming (sic) to get close enough to dart a wild deer than for a hunter to shoot it" ... not necessarily, but the diff is that the hunter doesn't get paid by taxpayers to do so. I can easily imagine it costing more than $300 - $1000 per deer shot by hunters, when figuring in the cost of the gun, ammo, equipment, camo clothing, transportation, blinds, renting a cabin, time taken off work, etc. StuRat (talk) 21:06, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Although bear in mind that many hunters would already have some of those things (e.g. Dad built the blind when you were a kid, and it's just out on the edge of the woods a few minutes' walk from the house you've always lived in), so the actual cost of hunting deer this time around might be just the ammunition, the deer tag, and the time taken off work, plus the cost of processing it if you get one. Nyttend (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)