Tomorrow is World Marmot Day!

With World Marmot Day tomorrow, we want to celebrate our local star, the Yellow-bellied marmot! Yellow-bellied marmots have a tough go at life, with everyone wanting to eat them and their young. Predators like coyotes, raptors, bobcats, bears, cougars, badgers and more are all after them. And because of this, they have to be on constant alert.

Marmots will go on the defense against their many predators by going on the look-out and calling out to the colony if they sense danger. The chirping will get faster when the danger is closer and will turn into more of a trilling sound if they are getting chased. The chirping is the main vocalization and they will make the same sound even for different predators. Females with new pups will call the most since they are trying to protect her offspring. However, marmots will usually only call when they are near their burrow since it also indicates to the predator where they are. So if they are near their burrows, it offers them that extra safety net, being able to escape into the burrow where predators have a harder time reaching them. Marmots need to look out for each other, which is necessary when life is so rough.