Rodents Of Unusual Size

I think he's actually a young one, late in the season.. Ours are all Hoary Marmots - I believe you get Yellow Bellied Marmots down south.. Here's a few more random canadian rockies marmots to compare








That last one has me and my dad sitting on the ground in the background, it's in height of the rockies in BC and they are completely fat and fearless


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Yup, same animal, and nice pictures!

I've run into some of the "fat and fearless" types, but mostly I find marmots to be a bit elusive. In Colorado this year the few that I saw just ran on sight of me. Most commonly I see them somewhat in between in a sort of "I'm safe here at a distance on a rock", but they won't let you approach. I can think of a handful or less of experiences where they just hang around and you can get relatively close, and those mostly seemed to be places where I think they just get used to a lot of people coming through --- JMT (Sierra Nevadas), Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier, Guitar Lake near Mt. Whitney --- those all had relatively fearless marmots, but overall this seems to me more the exception than the rule (?).

I really just don't see marmots much; quite a lot actually in my own back yard so to speak (naturally in quite rocky areas), but overall on trails I don't think they're that common. There's so very much trail I've never been on however, and what I have seen I've mostly only seen once so this is just a 'best guess' in terms of what's "normal" ! It's certainly true that a lot more animals see me than I see the animals.

Well, see there it is Brian, We've now established that you absolutely must schedule a GDT thru-hike ASAP so you can be properly exposed to frequent Marmots

Here are two of our Sierra marmots. They do look similar.

You all and your marmots. I see a lot fewer marmots when I bring my dog. I can hear their alarm calls, so I know they are still out there. This makes sense though doesn't it, dogs look like coyote and fox (and wolf).

I wonder if any people tried eating the things. Guinea pig is considered a delicacy in Peru.

Yes, they are delicious and rather fatty.. kind of like cross between pork and Castor Canadensis. A haunch of marmot is not bad.

And yes I've eaten Castor Canadensis. and yes I'm using the latin name to avoid confusion...

Castor Canadensis? I had to look that up. Basically a marmot is a large squirrel, right. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. I've got recipes for those.

Castor is perfectly plain latin for "the world's largest rodent".

Actually, wouldn't that be the capybara?

Dang! I must have missed the memo! Capybaras can weigh up to 100 lbs, so it is clearly the champ compared to the puny 40 lbs or so a beaver can manage.

Marmots are official pests here (yellow belly). Anyone can kill them them on their land by any method no limits and otherwise anyone with a hunting license can shoot as many as they want. We call them Whistle Pigs around here. I neve heard of anybody eating one. Hmm - maybe a market exists?
Jim

Ah, thread drift. Gotta love it. Capybara isn't that just a really large guinnea pig that swims? Back on track here...I'm still thinking marmot filet wrapped in bacon (everything is better in bacon). The problem is all my rodent recipes involve soaking in whole milk for 2 days. Hard to arrange that backpacking. Jimshaw, if you market this right, you could corner the high end market.

threads either drift or end quickly....

We seem to have drited onto this topic... and this drift is bad even for us.. yep... ok I just sorta fixed it.

Here are three Colorado Rockies marmots (not to be confused with our indoor LaCross team, the Colorado Mammoth.)

Note the sleek, well-manicured, full-length coat of fur, taking Colorado Rockies marmots to the fashion forefront of North America.

That scenery looks nothing like the Fire Swamp. (OK. I'll quit drifting the thread now while I'm ahead.)

Where I'm from in South Louisiana, we have Nutria rats. Basically the same as a mormot, but it lives in water. To the cooking quest, never eaten a mormot, but I have eaten a nutria; not too good. Really "wierd" tasting. Some critters just ain't worth cookin', like nutria, coons, turtles, etc.

If I am not mistaken, the natives here in Utah call marmonts "rock chucks".

How much rock could a rock chuck chuck, if a rock chuck could chuck rock?

Yeah, but I've been to Louisana - got relatives there who own a swamp

the diet of a nutria probably affects a lot of how it tastes. Marmots are nice alpine herbivores where I am - and usually chubby - nutria look like overgrown rats - and I think pretty much eat the same things

Now mind you, why would you eat nutria when you can eat alligator or crawdads or catfish.....them's tasty eats down there.

To extend the drift a bit more, I have to say that our Ozark crawdads are the biggest you'll find anywhere and tastier than Maine Lobster and those mudbugs they have down in Louisiana wouldn't stand a chance in a crawdad cookoff

For some reason this thread reminds me of the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" and the scene where all three of the main characters are hunkered around a fire cooking a gopher...hungry as can be.

. . . come on Bill, what your crawdad's are missing is the wonderful taste of herbicides and pesticides that our La crawfish have. They get that great taste since they are grown and raised in the same fields as the rice crops. The crawfish live down in the dirt and absorb all those spicy chemicals, then grow, pop out, and are caught in a net then eaten. In all honesty, Bill, I bet your crawfish are better, the La have been getting a lot smaller and wierder over that last decade or so. The "chemical" thing is just my opinion and observations over my life.

That's too bad, and I really am sorry to hear that. I've read a quite a bit about some of those issues and it's just heart wrenching to see some of the more obvious problems we've caused.

I don't know if So AR is any better, it's a whole different world once you get down out of the Ozark/Ouachita Mountains.

Last year the floods were so bad here I couldn't get out to set any traps. Hopefully this year will be better. Two years ago I finally did get out and set some. It took me a few shots to get it right, and I learned what I was doing wrong by reading advice by a crawfish trap builder from Louisiana. After that I did get a trap full, sort of. That's another story, but I did get to eat some of our crawdads and they were delicious. Boiled, then sauteed in butter, my gosh, I really would take a mess of them over lobster!

Nope, the one you're referring to is a marmot. here's a pika


... He was in one of the most nice places to stop on earth for lunch.. Start at

http://pics.obtuse.com/maligne-nigel-2010/0801-102031.html

and click next a few times to see lots of pics of him and his surroundings. (Top of Jonas Shoulder in Jasper)