James Norgan, age 11, for his question:
Where would you find an animal called a marmot?
In the swift flowing Columbia river you may hear a shrill whistle and catch a glimpse of grizzly fur scuttling for safety. That would be the hairy Marmot, large for his kind, and called the whistler. You may also spot a patch of taffy colored fur sunbathing in the Arizona deserts. This animal too is a marmot unlike his northern cousins, this fellow has no reason to hibernate through the winter months.
On February 2, so the story goes, a certain fellow wakes up from his winter snooze, poles his furry nose above ground and surveys the weather. This is the woodchuck of Groundhog Day, also a marmot. For the woodchuck, or groundhog, is the eastern cousin of the western marmots and all the other marmots living in the world.
The marmot family is part of the huge clan of rodents, or gnawing mammals. Distantly related are the squirrels, rats, mice, prairie dogs and beavers. The marmot is much larger than the squirrel, though its tail is less showy. It is usually a fat and comfortable looking animal, sleek and well fed. The marmots build themselves cozy burrows and they tenderly line the under round nurseries for their young.
The marmot family has taken up residence almost all over our country. One cousin does cell in the southern deserts. Another . fattens and suns himself throughout our eastern states. Another lives way above the snow line of our western mountains.
There are also marmot cousins living in other countries. Most of these have made their homes among snowy mountain crests. Some live among the Swiss Alps, and many a Swiss boy has caught a young marmot and tamed it to be a friendly pet.
Other marmots live high in the snowy Himalayas in India and Tibet. In many places they are the only furry mammals to be found above the snowline of the high mountains. Many of the Alpine and Himalayan marmots live together in colonies rather like their distant relatives, the prairie dogs.
A few marmots live on the steppe lands of Russia. Apart from these, it seems that the American marmots are the only ones to come down to earth from their high mountain towers. Among these is the Groundhog, alias woodchuck, alias Marmot who is supposed to do his stuff for us on February 2. Though Andy very much doubts whether the lazy fellow ever opens an eyelid until March.