Hikers near the top of a trail on Blackcomb Mountain, above Whistler in British Columbia, met a small marmot that stood up on its hind legs and let out a piercing scream. The clip, filmed by Lone Goat Soap Co. and posted on 25 July 2015, captures the very sound that gave Whistler its name.
The screaming marmot video from Blackcomb Mountain
Lone Goat Soap Co. published the recording on YouTube as "Marmot screaming on Blackcomb Mountain", with the original footage on its Instagram account, @lonegoatsoap. The marmot stands bolt upright on a mountain slope with a wide, forested valley below and calls again and again.
Blackcomb Peak rises to 2,436 metres (7,992 feet) in the Fitzsimmons Range, east of Whistler village. Its slopes form part of the Whistler Blackcomb resort, and its far side borders Garibaldi Provincial Park. In summer, the high alpine terrain becomes hiking country, and marmot territory.
Meet the hoary marmot
The hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) is the only marmot species living around Whistler, although British Columbia has four. It lives in the mountains of north-west North America, from Washington and Idaho north through much of Alaska, mainly above the tree line at up to about 2,500 metres.
- Size: 62–82 cm long including the tail, which makes it a giant among ground squirrels.
- Weight: about 3.75 kg in May, rising to about 7 kg by September as it fattens up; big males can top 10 kg.
- Diet: leaves, flowers, grasses, sedges, berries, roots, mosses and lichens.
- Hibernation: seven to eight months a year in burrows among boulders, so marmots are active only from about March to September.
- Family life: colonies of usually 10 to 20 animals, built around a dominant male, a few females and their young. A group of marmots is called a "madness".
Why marmots whistle and scream
Hoary marmots have at least seven types of call, including chirps, whistles, growls and whines. Many are alarm calls that warn the colony when a predator is near, and the list of predators is long: golden eagles, grizzly and black bears, wolverines, coyotes, foxes, lynx, wolves and cougars.
The high-pitched warning whistle earned the species the nickname "the whistler". A marmot standing tall and calling at hikers is almost certainly sounding the alarm, telling its neighbours that something large has arrived. The best way to enjoy the moment is to stay on the trail, keep your distance and leave your food packed away.
How Whistler got its name from the marmots
Long before skiing arrived, the mountain was known as Cwítima or Kacwítima to the Lil'wat Nation and Sk̲wik̲w to the Squamish Nation. In the 1860s, British naval surveyors named it London Mountain because of its frequent fog.
From the 1920s, locals unofficially called it "Whistler" or "Whistle" after the marmots' alarm calls, and the name was made official in the 1960s, which also suited a growing ski resort better than a name associated with London smog. The marmot has remained a local symbol ever since: Willie Whistler became the resort's marmot mascot in the 1980s, and Mukmuk, modelled on the Vancouver Island marmot, appeared at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Hoary marmots are protected under British Columbia's Wildlife Act.
For another animal puzzle in the snow, try spotting sheep in a snowy Saskatchewan field, and for wildlife much farther south, see the penguins in our Patagonia photo guide.
No comments