So, will the pole d'eau defeat the cockahoes in the Cocodrie Bracket?
Will the gaspergou upset the sac-a-lait to survive in the Pointe a la Hache Regional?
Can the dos gris overcome the mighty choupique and carry the shrimp champagne emblematic of taking the Delacroix title before heading for New Orleans?
That's right, it's time for Marsh Madness, that annual Big Dance on the Bayou offered by The Times-Picayune that separates the nutria from the mink -- or for the benefit of you newly arrived residents of the delta, real marsh people from those chivos (those behind-the-levees posers).
We offer 50 questions that test your marsh wisdom, a much greater challenge than anyone will find on the hardwoods this month.
We've updated questions with the latest confirmed knowledge about the great wetlands of Southeast Louisiana that provides not only the platform for our unique culture, but any chance we have to be living here in the next 50 years.
Don't forget that in multiple choice questions, there can be more than one answer.
We're sticking with the traditional grading system:
-- Score better than 85 percent (43 out of 50), and you can add "eaux" to your last name.
-- Score between 84 and 75 percent (42 to 38 correct), and you can keep your white boots.
-- Finish below 75 percent (37 or fewer correct), and your friends get to call you a Texan!
Don't forget that in multiple choice questions, there can be more than one answer.
1. The largest expanse of coastal wetlands in the continental United States is in:
2. How many square miles of those wetlands have been lost since the 1930s?
3. Under current conditions, Louisiana stands to lose how many more square miles of coast over the next 50 years?
C: It isn't losing wetlands anymore
4. The deadline for restoring many of the wetlands around New Orleans before the loss becomes insurmountable is:
A: 30 years
B: 120 years
C: Six years
D: Last year.
5. Repairing Louisiana's coast is strictly a state and local problem.
6. Match the Cajun name to the common scientific name:
A: Dos Gris
C: Pole d'eau
F: Gros bec
1. Snapping turtle
2. Yellow-crowned night heron
6. Freshwater drum
7. The state record speckled trout weighed:
A: 15.3 pounds
B: 8.97 pounds
C: 12.38 pounds
8. The gender of an alligator is determined by:
A: The Y chromosome
B: Amount of sunlight
C: Age of the father
D: Temperature during egg development
9. Global warming is a major threat to our chances of protecting Louisiana's coast.
10. The major causes of Louisiana's rapid coastal land loss in the past 70 years include:
B: Oil and gas industry
11. Catfish taste:
A: With their mouth
B: With their skin
C: With their whiskers
D: Good when fried.
12 How many miles of shoreline were oiled by the Deepwater Horizon blowout?
13. How many species of fish can be found in Louisiana's coastal zone?
14. More oil comes into the United States across Louisiana's coastal wetlands than through the Alaska Pipeline.
15. What percent of Louisiana anglers harvest a limit of specks?
16. The most effective hurricane protection for coastal communities is:
A: A home in North Carolina
B: A private jet
C: More rigs in the Gulf
17. The name of the state plan to prevent and address coastal land loss is:
A: Louisiana Dreamin'
B: The 2012 Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast
C: The St. Judge Project
18. Louisiana's surviving coastal wetlands are twice as large as Florida's Everglades.
19. The favorite food of speckled trout is:
B: Popeye's three-piece, white meat, mild
20. The nation should pay for repairing our coast because:
A: The nation erected the levees and dredged many of the shipping channels that caused the deltas to die.
B: The energy development that helped destroy our coast benefited the entire nation.
C: Damages to industry that would result from doing nothing would be a severe blow to the economies of dozens of states that depend on our ports.
D: The state cannot afford the cost alone.
E: All of the above
21. How long did it take the Mississippi River to build the lands in southeastern Louisiana lost during the past 70 years?
A: One day
B: 789 years
C: 7,000 years
22. How many speckled trout are taken home by Louisiana anglers each year?
B: 3 million
C: 10 million
D: Too many
23. What percent of each redfish spawning class live to escape in-shore fishing pressure and join the offshore spawning stock?
24. Dams and other development north of New Orleans has reduced the sediment load in the Mississippi River by:
A: 20 percent
B: 50 percent
C: 66 percent
25. Which of the following mammals has never been native to the Lake Pontchartrain basin:
D: Grizzly bear
26. Scientists think we can rebuild all or most of the coastal wetlands lost since the 1930s.
27. The biggest fish living in the marsh is:
A: Black drum
B: Alligator gar
28. The state fish is:
A: Largemouth bass
C: Blackened redfish
D: Trout meuniere
29. The state's plan to addresss the coastal crisis could reverse land loss in 40 years.
30. The first migrating duck to arrive in Louisiana each year is:
B: Blue-winged teal
31. The last ducks to return north are:
B: Blue-winged teal
32. Bayou Terre aux Beoufs was named for:
B: A carnival krewe
D: A man's family
33. The state reptile is
A: A politician
B: The king snake
C: The alligator
D: Nick Saban
34. How many miles of canals were dredged across Louisiana's coastal wetlands since the 1930s?
A: More than 10,000
B: Less than 5,000
C: Less than 1,200
35. Which species belong to these nicknames?
A: Rat and bull
E: Green trout
36. The "dead zone" is:
A: The Saints' 2012 draft
C: An area of low oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico
37. What percent of North Amercia's migratory waterfowl use Louisiana's coastal wetlands?
38. Which of the following mammals are found in local estuaries:
39. Louisiana's coast is only losing land:
40. The biggest fish weighed at a Louisiana marina and caught on rod and reel was:
A: Yellowfin tuna
B: Blue marlin
C: Bluefin tuna
41. The average size of a redfish kept by Louisiana anglers is:
A: 2.3 pounds
B: 12.2 pounds
C: 4.1 pounds
42. Speckled trout begin migrating to spawning areas when the water temperature is:
A: 65 degrees
B: 55 degrees
C: 70 degrees
D: 75 degrees
43. Of the 2 million eggs a female blue claw crab typically produces, how many usually survive?
44. Ducks seldom leave the coast after arriving in the fall:
45. The oldest-lived fish in the coastal marsh is:
A: Black drum
B: Alligator gar
C: Lionel Serigne
D: Manta ray
46. Which part of the marsh ecosystem produces the most biomass?
A: The water
B: The grass
C: Cypress swamps
D: The top layer of the soil.
47. How many redfish did Louisiana anglers harvest in 2010?
A: 2.66 million
B: 1.5 million
48. How many specks did Louisiana anglers harvest in 2010?
A: 7.3 million
B: 1 million
C: 9.36 million
49: During the peak May-September spawning season, speckled trout spawn:
B: Six times
50: What is the largest mammal found in Louisiana estuaries?
C: Killer whales
D. Joe "Pops" Bourgeois
1: C. According to federal figures, 40 percent of the wetlands left in the continental United States -- more than 6,800 square miles -- are in Louisiana, far more than any other state.
2: B. Now, faithful readers might rmember the answer to this question was 2,300 the past two years. The new figure comes from the latest study from the U.S. Geological Survey, which is now being used as the official figures by the state of Louisiana. This is still one-third of what existed in 1900, an area the size of Delaware.
3: D. This is also from the latest research by the USGS. If averaged over 50 years, that comes to the staggering figure of 35 square miles per year, which is even more than the standard "a football field every 48 minutes" used for the last decade.
4. C. In 2007, coastal scientists said if the state was not actively building land in the basins around New Orleans within 10 years, some areas of open water would be so large and deep it would be too expensive to fix.
5. False. The state's coastal wetlands nourish and protect huge industries that serve all Americans. Twenty-seven percent of America's oil and 30 percent of its gas travels through the state's coast, serving half of the nation's refinery capacity, an infrastructure that few other states would welcome and that would take years to relocate. Ports on the river from Venice to LaPlace handle 56 percent of the nation's grain shipments. And the estuaries now rapidly turning to open water produce half of the nation's wild shrimp crop and about half its oysters and a third of its blue-claw crabs. Studies show destruction of the wetlands protecting those industries would put $103 billion in assets at risk.
6. A-3; B-4; C-7; D-6; E-1; F-2; G-5.
7. C. Leon Mattes weighed that record in at Lake Hermitage in April 1950. The largest speckled trout landed by rod and reel since then was the 11.99-pound monster hauled in from the Trestles in Lake Pontchartrain by Slidell's Kenneth Kreeger in Janaury 1999.
9. True. While the International Panel on Climate Change in 2007 predicted most of the U.S. coastline will see an 18-inch rise in sea level due to global warming by the end of the century, the estimate for areas surrounding New Orleans is 3 to 6 feet. The difference is subsidence, the starving river deltas that make up southeast Louisiana will continue sinking at one of the fastest rates in the world as sea level rise accelerates due to warming water and the melting of glaciers and sheet ice. (See the T-P animation and graphics at nola.com/graphics/2008/12/SinkingLand.swf).
10. D-B-C and A -- in that order. Levee construction on the river set the process in motion by preventing sediment from replenishing the deltas. But LSU scientists say if that is all we had done, the coast would have been in good shape for another 1,000 years. Canal dredging for oil and gas companies compressed that time frame into 70 years, they said. In fact, according an EPA report (Saving Louisiana's Coastal Wetlands, The Need for a Long-term Plan of Action), by 1987, canals were 2.5 percent of the total coastal surface area of our coast, and that as much as 90 percent of all land loss could be linked to canals of all kinds. Further, a recent report by Alex Kolker at LUMCON showed a straight-line link between levels of oil and gas extraction and subsidence. Meanwhile, hurricanes take occassional chunks, and nutria are still eating us out of house and home.
11. 5: A, B, C, D. Trick question. Taste buds cover every part of a catfish's exterior. And, yes, they do taste good when fried.
12. A. This is the number where oil was seen on the surface. However, it doesn't account for the various chemical components of oil that washed throughout the estuaries, the impacts of which may not be known for many more years.
13. B. Another trick question. Ecologists claim a "coastal zone" can extend to offshore waters, and LSU ichthyologists say it's likely that almost all of the species known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico -- between 585 and 600 -- will at some time be found in that area.
15. D. This is from 2007, the last year for which complete fishery data is available, but it shows the general trend over several years.
16. D. Although marshes have rightly been described as "linear levees, " wooded wetlands provide more surge protection because they can knock down both waves and wind, scientists say.
17. B. You can and should download and read it at http://coastal.louisiana.gov/.
19. C. State research shows small fish make up 60 percent of the specks' diet, with menhaden (pogies) the most common species in the mix. Brown shrimp make up about 7 percent of the diet.
21. C. Southeastern Louisiana consists of deltas built by the river, which carried runoff from most of the continent as the glaciers began melting at the end of the last ice age.
22. C. That's the average since 2006, which was a record 13 million, to last year's recent low of 7 million, a drop related to the oil spill closures.
23. C. The target for sustainability is 30 percent, so the state's management regime obviously is working.
24. C. That figure is from the federal government. Not surprising because there are more than 40,000 dams, locks and other structures on the Mississippi drainage now blocking that sediment from reaching us, and dramtically reducing the raw material needed to rebuild our wetlands.
25. B. All but antelope were abundant when the first Europeans settled here in the 1700s.
26. False. Even if we had the time and money, the river no longer caries enough sediment to rebuild what we have lost.
27. B. Alligator gars commonly reach 150 pounds. Tarpon can top 200 pounds, but they are not year-round residents, only seasonal visitors. And dolphins are not fish.
28. B. AKA - sac-a-lait.
29. True. If the state finds the $50 billion to fund the plan, and everything goes as expected, the state could turn the equation and building land.
30. B. Blue-wings show up around mid-August, followed shortly by spoonbills and pintails. Mid-October usually brings the first flights of gadwall, widgeon and green-winged teal. Mallards and divers show up last, their arrivals largely dependent on what the weather is doing to the north.
31. B. Blue-wings that winter in Mexico don't arrive in our marshes until March, where they rest and stage before moving northward. Every year, some decide to nest on our coast and never go back north.
32. C. Historians say the first French settlers called the distributary of the Mississippi that winds southward through St. Bernard Parish as Bayou Terre aux Beoufs Sauvage, Land of Wild Cattle, which is the name they gave to buffalo.
34. A. Permits for dredging in wetlands were not required by the federal government until the 1970s, and some coastal experts suspect the miles dredged before that time might be another 10,000. Most of that has been for oil and gas exploration and pipelines serving the nation's thirst for energy, but equally damaging canals have been dredged for shipping.
35. A, redfish; B and D, speckled trout; C, flounder; E, largemouth bass.
38. Another trick question. A, B, C, D. Mink, otter and deer are natives, and coyotes migrated into the region during the last half of the 20th century and are now found in swamps and marshes.
39. False. We actually are gaining land at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River, where there are no levees to prevent over-bank flooding and sediment deposition. This is the process that needs to be re-established along the Mississippi River.
40. C. A bluefin tuna caught by Ron Roland 30 miles south of South Pass on May 25, 2003, weighed 1,152 pounds.
42. C. 70 degrees seems to be the key temperature that spurs specks to move from their deep winter locations to spawning spots in the larger coastal bays. However, as with most fish and widlife, nature provides a staggered start and finish to prevent one event from wiping out the species.
43. B. The crab has adapted to a highly competitive environment by mass producing eggs.
44. False. Studies have shown that weather events and habitat conditions, including hunting pressure, can prompt some species to travel back north as far as Arkansas in a day.
45. A. Black drum commonly live to 70 years, and alligator gar seem to peak at 55. Of course, Serigne passed that mark more than a decade ago.
46. D. LSU researchers say a wafer-thin top layer of the marsh mud -- barely seven hundredths of an inch thick -- containing microgranisms such as algae are critical to fully half of all production in the estuaries.
49. C. Specks spawn repeatedly when water conditions are right. The species is known as "batch" spawners, which means some portion of them are spawning at any time during the season. Like crabs, they have successfully adapted to a very competitive environment.
50. B. Although rarely sighted, manatees do migrate through portions of the Lake Pontchartrain basin almost every year and can weigh more than 1,000 pounds. Dolphins are easily the most common large mammals found in the local ecosystem, typically weighing between 300 and 500 pounds. Whale sharks and whales, which cruise in the deep Gulf of Mexico, are not found in the coastal system.