Dawn wins inaugural Fat Marmot Week

Dawn, a six-year-old yellow-bellied marmot in Colorado, has been crowned the first champion of Fat Marmot Week after winning both the public vote and researchers’ weight-gain contest.

The competition, organized by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory’s Marmot Project, featured eight marmots fattening up before winter hibernation: Dawn, G, Dan’s Hat, Citroen, Open Kite, 1, Dandelion and Stonehenge. The contest was designed to draw attention to the cat-sized alpine rodents and help support a decades-long research project facing funding cuts.

More than 23,000 votes were cast between Aug. 24 and Aug. 29, according to The Guardian. Organizers said Dawn won the popular vote and also emerged as the “true” winner based on researchers’ estimates of the animals’ actual size. NPR reported that Dawn gained 4.5 pounds, reaching a total of 13 pounds. The Guardian reported that Julien Martin, a professor of evolutionary ecology at the University of Ottawa and co-leader of the marmot project, said Dawn weighed about 6 kilograms, or 13.2 pounds.

“That’s one of the heaviest animals we’ve ever measured,” Martin said. “Six kilos is really humongous for that species.”

The Marmot Project described Dawn as a father who “enjoys the taste of rocks.” Organizers thanked voters after the contest ended. “It’s been an amazing week and all of the competitors are winners in our hearts,” they wrote. “Thank you to all those who voted.”

Fat Marmot Week was inspired by Alaska’s Fat Bear Week, the popular contest in which the public votes for the brown bear that has bulked up most dramatically before winter. Marmots, however, are true hibernators. The Marmot Project says they are the largest true hibernators in the world, while bears enter a deep sleep known as torpor.

Yellow-bellied marmots spend more than half the year hibernating through snowy high-mountain winters. They curl up, lower their body temperatures and slow their breathing, relying on stored fat until spring. The Guardian reported that marmots roughly double their body weight during summer and spend about five months underground. Colorado Parks and Wildlife says marmots can lose up to half their body weight during hibernation, and those that do not store enough fat or whose burrows are too shallow to protect them from freezing temperatures may not survive.

The competition also highlighted the precarious finances of the Marmot Project, which has studied the rodents since 1962 and is one of the longest-running studies of individually tagged mammals in the wild. Dan Blumstein, a UCLA professor who runs the project, told NPR that long-term studies are essential for understanding environmental change.

“These long-term studies provide us the insights to understand how organisms, plants, animals, whatever, respond to a changing environment,” Blumstein said.

Researchers have also turned to unconventional fundraising. Earlier this month, they launched an OnlyFans account called OnlyMarms, offering marmot photos and videos. NPR reported that the account had generated about $4,000 at the beginning of August. The Guardian reported that the broader fundraising effort has brought in more than $100,000 through OnlyFans subscriptions, outside donations and a marmot-themed cryptocurrency created by online supporters.

“We have some funding for next year, but after that, it’s looking very dire,” Blumstein told NPR.

For voters whose favorites did not win — including Stonehenge, a resilient mother whose litter was lost to a badger earlier this year, according to NPR — organizers have promised another Fat Marmot Week in 2027.