By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason

Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an ongoing Great Lakes Echo series.

Last week the Terrestrial Terror victors took to the ring for a second round SmackDown!

The mute swan faced the emerald ash borer  in a rumble that ended in a landslide victory for The Green Menace.

Eighty-five percent of pollsters rooted for the green-plated insect over the large and hostile waterfowl. As for the bracketeers, 57 percent chose the six-legged borer for the win followed by the mute swan with 20 percent. The rest of the bracketeers chose contenders that have already left the competition.

While the Mute Swan leaves the competition, experts say that it isn’t just  a big pond bully.

There is a redeeming quality to the swan, which is why the population goal set by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources isn’t zero, said Barb Avers, a Michigan Department Natural Resources waterfowl and wetland specialist.

“There’s a social value in mute swans and a lot of people enjoy viewing them,” Avers said. “We do think that with a much, much lower population that they could likely exist without these ecological impacts,” Avers said The redeeming value for the Emerald Ash Borer, is much more mystifying.  Plus, the beetle is hard to detect and the Great Lakes region is a more than suitable habitat for it.

“We are dealing with a point of disadvantage here, we haven’t got good detection, we haven’t got good tools and we have an ideal environment,” said Andrea Diss-Torrance the gypsy moth and invasive forest insect program coordinator of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.