Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an ongoing Great Lakes Echo series. Brackets can be filled out until Friday, March 18. Find more information here.
By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Now, the avian competitors take to the ring to fight for the title of most destructive in the Great Lakes region!
MUTE SWAN vs. BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD
Flying out of the left corner is the Mute Swan, known on the ponds as “The Silent Foul.” It is an aggressive waterfowl that bullies other birds and even people.. This beautiful but menacing creature uproots water plants and rakes up sediments. Standing up to “The Silent Foul,” the Brown-headed Cowbird, also known as “The Warbler’s Woe,” lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, tricking them into raising its offspring as their own. This broody number has hurt the populations of songbirds like the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler.
Fighter Profiles:
Alias: The Silent Foul
Legal name: Cygnus olor
Home Turf: Europe and Asia
U.S. Fighting Debut: Mid-1800s
Agent: “Fowl” on us! Humans intentionally introduced these birds to the U.S. for ornamental purposes.
Preferred Great Lakes fighting arena: lakes and wetlands of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario.
Weight/Size class: Wingspan: Up to about 5 feet. Weight: Up to about 30 lbs.
Fighting Skills:
- This waterfowl is extremely aggressive towards native species like the loon and towards humans. Mute swans can break human bones and have been linked to human and waterfowl fatalities.
- Though beautiful, one adult swan can uproot 20 pounds of aquatic plants each day.
- While sucking up all this aquatic vegetation the silent foul kicks up sediments, which reduces water quality.
- Loyal mates for life this waterfowl is an extremely productive reproducer. Some experts speculate its population growth between 10 to 20 percent annually in Great Lakes states.
Life Expectancy: The record for a wild mute swan is 19 years.
Offspring: Five to seven eggs per clutch.
U.S. Fighting Debut: Mid-1800s
Agent: “Fowl” on us! Humans intentionally introduced these birds to the U.S. for ornamental purposes.
Preferred Great Lakes fighting arena: lakes and wetlands of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario.
Weight/Size class: Wingspan: Up to about 5 feet. Weight: Up to about 30 lbs.
Fighting Skills:
- This waterfowl is extremely aggressive towards native species like the loon and towards humans. Mute swans can break human bones and have been linked to human and waterfowl fatalities.
- Though beautiful, one adult swan can uproot 20 pounds of aquatic plants each day.
- While sucking up all this aquatic vegetation the silent foul kicks up sediments, which reduces water quality.
- Loyal mates for life this waterfowl is an extremely productive reproducer. Some experts speculate its population growth between 10 to 20 percent annually in Great Lakes states.
Life Expectancy: The record for a wild mute swan is 19 years.
Offspring: Five to seven eggs per clutch.
Alias: The Warbler’s Woe
Legal name: Molothrus ater
Home Turf: Great plains of the central U.S.
Agent: Brown-headed cowbirds moved east from the central plains when forests were removed or fragmented and areas were converted to farm land because they prefer brush, forest edges, pastures, orchards and grasslands.
Preferred Great Lakes fighting arena: All Great Lakes states and provinces.
Weight/Size class: Length: 6 to 8 inches. Weight: 1.41 to 1.76 oz
Fighting Skills:
- These parasitic birds remove eggs from other bird nests and replace it with its own.
- Recently hatched baby broody parasites out-compete native bird young by aggressively hogging their food.
- Some scientists speculate that this parasitic habit has lead to the decline of some songbirds like Michigan’s rare Kirtland’s warbler.
Life Expectancy: The longest recorded cowbird lifespan is nearly 16 years.
Offspring: Females lay up to 40 eggs per breeding season.
EUROPEAN STARLING vs. HOUSE SPARROW
And singing in the next battle, the European Starling, known in the skies as “Shakespeare’s Darling,” because it was introduced to the U.S. because Shakespeare mentioned it in one of his plays, is highly adaptable and aggressive. Introduced from Europe, this darling starling quickly took outcompeted native cavity-nesting birds and also eats and damages crops. But will it out-compete the House Sparrow? “The Egg-beater,” as his friends know him, is also a native European and kills other birds, destroys their eggs and carries parasites.
Fighter Profiles:
Alias: Shakespeare’s Darling
Legal name: Sturnus vulgaris
Home Turf: Europe, Asia, Africa
U.S. Fighting Debut: 1890
Agent: Embarrassingly enough, this darling starling was introduced intentionally as part of a plan to introduce all birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s play to the U.S.
Preferred Great Lakes Fighting Arena: All Great Lakes states and provinces
Weight/Size class: Length: 7.9—9.1 Wingspan: 12.2—15.7 Weight: 2.1—3.4.
Fighting Skills:
- This avian intruder is highly adaptable and is described by Cornell University’s The Birds of North America as: “arguably the most successful avian introduction to this continent,” and has earned a title on the top “100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species.”
- A formidable foe, starlings out-compete native species especially cavity-nesting birds.
- These birds have a knack for damaging fruit and grain crops like blueberries and cherries. A 2000 study estimated that starlings cause $800 million of damage to U.S. crops per year. Ouch.
- Sick of these frequent fliers? Well, that’s because they can make you sick. European starlings have been known to carry diseases like meningitis and salmonellosisn that can be passed to livestock and poultry. Some diseases can also be passed to humans.
Life Expectancy: Up to 20 years.
Offspring: 1 to 2 clutches of 4 to 6 eggs per year.
Alias: The Egg-beater
Legal name: Passer domesticus
Home Turf: Europe, Africa, Asia.
U.S. Fighting Debut: 1851 Brooklyn, New York
Agent: Purposefully introduced.
Preferred Great Lakes fighting arena: All Great Lakes states and provinces.
Weight/Size class: Length: 5.9—6.7 inches. Wingspan: 7.5—9.8 inches. Weight: 1 ounce.
Fighting Skills:
- Highly aggressive, this little bird is known to evict native songbirds, like tree swallows, from their nests or nest boxes. They kill nestlings, females incubating eggs and destroy eggs.
- Avid eaters, house sparrows can damage crops like grains, flowers and fruits. They also contaminate crops with their fecal matter.
- They carry gnarly diseases and parasites, some of which can be transmitted to humans and other animals.
Life Expectancy: The oldest house sparrow recorded was nearly 16 years old.
Offspring: 1 to 8 eggs in each clutch. They have up to four clutches per season.
Who will win the battle of the skies? Make your case below.
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BALLAST WATER and EPA
Coast Guard interest, as a mission, for enforcement is needed for any Federal agency regulations to matter. The Coast Guard was supposed to be releasing new standard in April 2011, which they confirmed in a statement, again announcing delay as Dec 2010 was the original scheduled for an announcement.
After Senator Boxer killed ballast water legislation passed by the House 395-7 the President as commander and chief has ignored the call from the house for legislation in favor of the alternative military plan for more study, delaying any meaningful action from being carried out for the last three years. NY backed off on their instituted regulations set for implementation in the election year 2012, as a results of foreign shipping pressure. Now the EPA is talking 2013.
Environmentalist who believe that meaningful regulations are this administrations goal after the presidential elections in 2012, should be aware of the trend of action: Asian Carp, inadequate action used to protect Illinois economic interest in favor of all Great Lakes states, misleading information issued on Gulf spill, with environmental damage from dispersant to hide oil (by those calling the shots), and disinterest to enforce the Clean Water Act, by the Coast Guard preventing ship movement of tar balls to Lake Pontchartrain, this history of deceit and inaction should be the indicators of why ballast is again being addressed with rhetorical promises prior to the presidential election of 2012.