Despite some dark cloudy skies on Saturday morning, hundreds of people attended the first Fishing and Nature Festival at Marshalltown Community College (MCC).

MCC Biology Professor Danielle Kness was the organizer for the event which was three years in the making and hopes to host it again. The purpose of the festival was to raise awareness and funds for the 27-acre nature center.

“People just don’t know that it’s here,” she said. “We wanted to make sure they know it’s here. It’s a community college and open to anybody who wants to come out and enjoy the area.”

The MCC pond, built in the early 1980s, was inaccessible and left unmanaged for a long time, according to Kness.

“No one really did anything with it for about 15 years,” she said. “So, it had overgrown and you couldn’t get to it. We’re going to dredge the pond next month and clean it out and kill off all the invasive species of weeds and try to restore the pond.”

That will be a big project for the fall, but next year the pond will look a lot better, particularly without the green algae on top of it. Access points will be added to make it easier for people to get to the pond, and students of the construction tech program will also build a dock, which should begin in the spring.

While MCC staff is not completely sure what fish are in the pond, she believes there is some carp and bluegill.

“We will restock it with sport fish next summer,” Kness said.

Festival attendees spent time fishing in the pond, engaging in kids’ activities and learning at different presentations from a variety of groups such as SOAR (Saving Our Avian Resources).

“Anyone who doesn’t want their fish can donate it to SOAR to feed to their raptors,” Kness said.

SOAR Wildlife Rehabilitator Cassie Wendl showed an 18-year-old peregrine falcon named Palasaides and Communications Director Linette Bernard brought Roho, an Eastern screech owl.

Wendl said the nonprofit organization was invited to give some raptor education and let people know what they do. While it is not known exactly what led Palasaides’ admittance to SOAR, Wendl suspects the bird was hit by a vehicle.

“Palasaides is one of our education ambassadors,” she said. “We like to use live birds during our public programming because they play an important part in making the public excited about conservation. It’s important for people to get more of a personal experience with them to get more interested in conservation.”

During their time at the festival, Wendl said they gave a presentation on the raptors and ecotoxicology, which is the scientific study of contaminants in the environment.

Other than SOAR, other groups which were present and provided education included Busy Bee Acres, the Master Gardeners of Marshall County and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Fortunately for attendees and the presenters, the weather lightened up as the Fishing and Nature Festival progressed through the morning and into the early afternoon.

“[This is for] getting people outside. We have students living in our dorms who did not even know this was here,” Kness said. “They live a couple hundred feet from it. This is just so people know it’s here and they can go out and use it. It’s OK to walk around, be outside and enjoy it. That’s my hope for the whole thing.”

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.