Every April, the Watershed Research Institute at Murray State University celebrates Earth Day and promotes environmental sustainability with a series of events on and off campus.
This year’s Four Rivers Watershed Sustainability Festival includes events like a biodiversity art exhibition, a wild game supper, a research symposium, and a screening of a documentary film in partnership with MSU Cinema International that highlights the work of environmentalist Rachael Carson.
Howard Whiteman, a professor of wildlife and conservation biology, is the WSU director. He said the annual festival has taken place for several years, and grows a little bigger each time it’s held.
“The festival basically went from one day to a week to a whole month over time, but we focus it around Earth Day,” Whiteman said.
The first event of the festival is the Beast Feast, taking place at the Murray City Park on April 11. In collaboration with Murray State chapters of the Wildlife and Fishery Society and the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Whiteman said the dinner event will allow people to raise funds for these clubs and try meat and game they may have never tasted before.
“Basically the students get together, and some of the faculty as well, and they create dishes made out of wild fish and game. And it's definitely a donation fundraiser for those societies, because it is actually illegal to sell wild game,” said Whiteman. “There'll be plenty of deer, for instance, it's very likely there might be rabbit or squirrel. In previous years we've had possums, raccoons… cougars, pronghorn antelope, elk and bison… If people have ever been interested in what some of those things might taste like, or they've thought about taking up hunting themselves, but somebody told them that none of it tastes good. Well, I can tell you that it all tastes good.”
On April 15, the WSI will be hosting a research symposium Murray in the Curris Center Barkley room on Murray State’s campus from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m,, where students will present on their research projects. It is also open to the public.
“There'll be graduate students and undergraduates presenting their research in everything from hydrology to the effects of climate change on amphibians to wetland restoration. All those sorts of things may be involved,” he said. “We encourage anyone who wants to show up. That's why we always like to have an audience, not just students.”
Whiteman said WSI is also partnering with MSU Cinema International this month to show the documentary film “Rachel Carson.” The famous environmentalist and marine biologist is best known for her book “Silent Spring,” which warned against pesticides, which led to a federal ban on DDT. The film will have two screenings on April 16 and 18 at 7 p.m. in Faculty Hall room 208.
“It really tells you a lot about her life and a lot of surprising things that really made her who she was,” he said. “Besides writing ‘Silent Spring,’ the thing I think most people don't realize is that she was actually trained in marine biology…’Silent Spring’ is really about songbirds and pesticides, and we think about her in that light, but we don't realize that she had a whole career where she was trying to protect the oceans as well.”
Then on Earth Day, April 22, MSU’s Earth and Environmental Science Department is putting on an event in the campus’s quad.
“Lots of different organizations are going to be there and have tables and be talking about how to better live on the planet, how to live more sustainably, and all the things we can do to make our world a better place,” said Whiteman.
Whiteman said the awards for artists who entered work in the Nature Art Exhibition, where submitted projects celebrating the environment or bringing awareness to climate change results, will be announced in the Biology Atrium on campus on April 23. He said submissions in years past varied dramatically from paintings to sculptures.
“It's a mix. Some of them are great landscapes or individual photographs of specific species in nature. But other ones have been really intriguing and creative expressions of our interactions with the environment,” said Whiteman. “For instance, we had one once that was like a dress made out of trash, and that was sort of indicative of the problems of pollution. And then last year, one of the winners, [which] was one of our Murray State students, actually was a tree trunk that had been cut. And the sort of different years in the lines of the tree, the rings of the tree, were different environmental events that had occurred in the past, like a timeline.”
Also on April 23, WSI is hosting the second annualMaddie Morgan Memorial Science Cafe, named in honor of a Murray State alum who was instrumental in organizing the Four Rivers Watershed Sustainability Festival. This year’s event at the Big Apple will feature a conversation with USDA scientist Bradly Robbins about feral hog management at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.
Whiteman said the institute will also be presenting the first Maddie Morgan Watershed Sustainability Award, which recognizes nominees that have made significant contributions to conservation and restoration of the planet either over a long period of time or through specific projects.
A full calendar of events for the Four Rivers Watershed Sustainability Festival can be found on the organization’s Facebook page.
