By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Let’s get ready to rumbleeeee!
Last year we introduced the Great Lakes SmackDown!, an interactive feature that pitted eight aquatic invasive species against each other in science-based “lake fights” to determine the region’s most destructive invader. Experts and readers weighed in on which species they thought was the worst for the lakes. In the end, the quagga mussel prevailed with a nasty filter-feeding addiction and a problem with hoarding toxins.
But this time around we’re going terrestrial: birds, mammals, insects and all sorts of plants. And maybe snails. You can help us decide.
We want to know which species you want to see on the bracket. Got a taste for garlic mustard? Fond of stink bugs? Join the Great Lakes SmackDown! draft and let us know which invader deserves to fight below.
And don’t forget to fight for your picks in March as the SmackDown! follows the NCAA championships.
Suggest fighters below or e-mail us at greatlakesecho@gmail.com
Humans. The most destructive invasive species by far.
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How about wild hogs vs giant hog-weed, starlings vs. house sparrows, gyspy moths vs. Asian lady beetles, and honeybees vx sirex wasps.
Can we count cormorants as invasive? If not, we should!
feral swine!!!
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With changes in climate, how do we distinguish “invasive species” from the natural migration of a species? I have seen white egrets nesting in the pond in front of Petsmart on Marsh road in the last two years. I’ve lived in Michigan for 5 decades and I never saw egrets before!