Marmota marmota
A large rodent with grey-brown fur that lives in colonies in alpine meadows. It digs its burrows preferably on sunny slopes, where the snow melts early and the grass grows back fast. A shrill whistle warns the others of danger from the sky: the golden eagle is one of its predators. It hibernates from the end of September until April or May.
A piercing cry crosses the alpine pasture, and the marmots that were warming themselves on the stones dive into their burrows. A few seconds later, the shadow of a golden eagle glides across the slope.
A stocky cousin of the squirrel, the marmot weighs 3 to 6 kg according to the Valais hunting service, but this weight changes a great deal over the seasons. Muscular shoulders, big claws: it is a digger. The male, usually slightly larger, looks very much like the female. On the ground it waddles along, but it can also bound.
Originally from the steppes, it inhabits the high meadows, above the last trees; in Valais it is found mainly between 2200 and 2600 m. It dislikes heat and avoids low altitudes. It prefers south-facing slopes, where the snow melts early and the grass grows for longer, and deep soil. A burrow can have 20 m of tunnels and go down to 3 m; it often has one for summer and another for winter.
Each family, a pair and its young from several years, defends a territory that the male marks with a gland on its cheek. Lookouts whistle the alarm. In summer it has to fatten up: at Avers, in the Grisons, studies cited by the Swiss National Park have shown that it seeks out certain plants, above all Alpine clover, and that the fatty acid content of what it eats matters a great deal. In autumn the family shuts itself into a chamber lined with hay. The marmots’ body temperature drops to as low as 3 °C; about once a fortnight, they wake up and warm themselves briefly. According to the canton of Valais, the animal loses up to half its weight. The female does not give birth every year: two or three young are born in May or June, 33 days after mating.
Not threatened, the marmot has been spreading in the Swiss Alps since around the 1950s, and a few colonies have been established on the summits of the Jura. It can still be hunted, mainly for its meat and fat. The golden eagle and the fox are its predators: according to the canton of Fribourg, marmots make up as much as 80% of the eagle’s diet when it is raising its young. Winter, however, kills far more of them. In the long run, the forest reclaiming abandoned pastures and the warming climate threaten its habitat.
Sources: info fauna, species account; Swiss National Park, marmot portrait; Valais Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife Service, factsheet “La marmotte” [The marmot] (2025); Forest and Nature Service of the Canton of Fribourg, leaflet “La marmotte” [The marmot].
