Need an Appetizer Before Fat Bear Week? Try Fat Marmots

No, this isn’t a Groundhog Day repeat. It really is time to celebrate the fall fattening of an at-risk species. Unlike late September’s Fat Bear Week in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, however, this week’s festivities involve a hungry herbivore. It's Fat Marmot week.

Marmots are housecat-sized rodents. They live in burrows. There are 15 species. Some, like groundhogs in the eastern US, are plentiful. Others, however, face climate-related challenges. The yellow-bellied marmots of Colorado’s Rockies in particular have been hit hard by warming weather.

To survive the winter, yellow-bellied marmots stuff themselves with food in the fall. They can double their body weight to a hefty 13 pounds or more. Then they hole up underground to hibernate through the winter. Ironically, they need lots of snow to survive the coldest months. A thick blanket of snow insulates the ground above their burrows. That keeps the warmth underground. Too little snow, and their burrows can freeze, killing the marmots.

“We had over 160 animals and we ended with 60 at the start of this season,” Dan Blumstein told The Associated Press (AP). “Most of them died because of the lack of snow cover.” Blumstein is the lead marmot expert at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.

Blumstein decided to launch Fat Marmot week to raise awareness of the animals’ plight and to raise money to continue research on the animals. His program and others have lost much of their funding amid steep Trump administration cuts to scientific research and national parks. He hopes the silly fun of the Fat Marmot promotion digs up enough donations to keep the study — and the marmots — alive.

“In some sense, we’re going to be laughing our way down as the Titanic sinks,” Blumstein told the AP. “Because what else are you going to do?”

Fat Marmot week runs through Friday.

Reflect: If you got to invent a holiday to celebrate something in nature, what would it be and why?

Gif of a marmot from Giphy.