MARMOT - THE PIG IN WOODCHUCK'S CLOTHING
Picture yourself eating nearly half your body weight in food
daily--as much as you can hold of all your favourite goodies.
When you're not eating you sun-bathe or just site and do nothing at all.
Picture yourself doing that all summer long. Now picture what you'll
look like at the end of the season. Well, so does the marmot.
About half a yard long, an adult marmot averages five to twelve
pounds in weight. It enters its winter hibernation absolutely, totally
obese; it emerges, come spring, slim and macho, albeit with a baggy,
ill-fitting hide. The sleep is a true hibernation, incidentally, wherein
the rodent teeth and nails cease growing and the animal's body
temperature drops to somewhere around 38°F. Even with the reduced
caloric requirements of this deep hibernation, the marmot needs all the
avoirdupois it can get to survive the six or seven months of winter in
its high country home near treeline.
Incredibly attractive and sexy in his slim spring persona, the male
sallies forth very early, before the snow has melted or green growth has
appeared. He presents himself hopefully at the doors of ladies' burrows until
one of them invites him in. He lives with her a few idyllic months, but
she gives him the boot before her litter of four to six babies is born
in latter May. By the end of summer the little marmots will be mature
enough to fend for themselves and set up house keeping
independently.
And "independently" it is, for the marmot is an intriguing mix of
colonial and solitary. Except for that brief fling in early spring, each
marmot lives separately in a den of its own, yet in the company of other
marmots with their single-person dwellings. Top choice for marmot
residential locations is a rock pile or slide near a meadow, where
predators cannot dig well. The meadow, of course, is for culinary
purposes. Strictly vegetarian, the marmot rarely turns down anything
green or blooming.
On sunny days the marmot gorges itself to the bursting point. Then it
drags its over-eater's paunch to some nearby rock or outcrop, there to
sit and keep watch. That's another reason marmots like meadows; the
marmot depends upon its sharp vision for defense, and in broad, open
country it can spot interlopers from afar. And with its unique, shrill
whistle it will warn the whole blankety-blank world that you are in the
area.
If you do perchance spot a marmot, you'll be looking at a pudgy,
waddling (top speed ten mph sustainable for less than a minute),
thick-set rodent with small ears and a ten-inch tail. Its colour will be
variations on grey, black and white here in Mount Rainier, for here the
Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) is our high-country member of
Overeaters Unanimous. On the east side of the state, in the Sierras and
in the Rockies, the chocolate-brown Yellow-bellied Marmot (Marmota
flaviventris) prevails. Over on the Olympic peninsula you'll be
looking at a species unique to that small area, the Olympic Marmot
(Marmota olympus) (to all but the taxonomists, it looks like any
other somewhat grizzled brown marmot). Vancouver Island has its own
indigenous species, the dark brown Marmota vancouverensis. If you
once lived in the eastern US or Canada, all these marmots will look to
you pretty much like a plain old woodchuck (Marmota monax) a.k.a.
ground hog. Small wonder--they're all of the same clan. And they all pig
out, too; ask any eastern farmer plagued by woodchucks in his fence
rows.
Ah, but our own Hoary Marmot is special. Of the marmots, he has
adapted best to winter extremes; he ranges all the way to the North
Slope and Brooks Range, well within the Arctic Circle. He occupies a
niche few other animals can hope to fill, and he keeps several predators
(coyotes, wolves, etc.,) happy in the process.
Besides: Any animal is special who possesses the good taste and
common sense to live here at Mount Rainier.
Sandy Dengler
