Overview
- Last winter researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory say roughly two-thirds of one monitored marmot population died during hibernation because low snow left burrows too cold.
- The lab is staging a bracket-style Fat Marmot Week with voting on Aug. 24, 26 and 28 and daily polls open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT to boost public engagement and fundraising.
- The team has turned to unconventional revenue streams, including a G-rated OnlyFans account called OnlyMarms and a supporter-created meme coin $OnlyMarms that has generated about $100,000 in transaction-fee donations.
- Researchers say they need more than $200,000 to fund three years of fieldwork and to stabilize a program that has lost graduate positions after federal funding cuts.
- The losses are linked to a record-low Upper Colorado River Basin snowpack this year that a new attribution study says human-driven climate change made about 14 times more likely, with broader consequences for downstream water supplies.