KANANASKIS COUNTRY – A hitchhiking marmot was returned to its Kananaskis Country home last week after it stowed away on a hiker’s truck and spent a few days wandering around the concrete jungle. Airdrie resident Chris Ratzlaff first discovered the marmot in his garage shortly after his wife returned from a hike at Ptarmigan Cirque. “My kid was in the garage grabbing something and came back in the house and told me that there was a creature in the garage. Creature is a little bit alarming,” Ratzlaff said with a laugh. Unable to get a good look at it, Ratzlaff thought it was a porcupine and left the garage door open hoping the animal would see itself out. When marmot sightings on the community Facebook page started popping up over the next few days, Ratzlaff connected the dots. “I was starting to feel guilty at that point because that was when we realized that it probably hitched a ride from the mountains and now we’re feeling like we dislocated this poor fella,” he said. Clean bill of health Spending a few days under the bright city lights, the marmot eventually returned to the garage, said Ratzlaff, who quickly called the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. “The leading theory is that it figured that was where it would pick up its ride home,” he said with a laugh. The animal, determined to be a female hoary marmot, was given a clean bill of health by vet techs and deemed fit to return to the wild. “She was doing some alarm calling, which is great and just being feisty, which wild marmots should be,” said Beki Hunt, executive director of the society, noting there were no signs of brain trauma or other injuries. Wildlife rehab staff returned the marmot to the Ptarmigan Cirque area on Friday (Aug. 7). “It took her a few minutes to sort of come out of the crate, which is quite normal,” Hunt said, noting she needed time to assess new smells and surroundings. “[Animals] are always going back into the area that they were found just because they have known territories and they know the area and they might even have family units.” Hunt added that the society usually takes in one hitchhiking marmot a year. “That doesn’t mean that it’s not happening in other places, it’s just the marmots coming to us,” she said. A reminder to check vehicles Hoary marmots can be hard to detect as stowaways. “They’re curious,” Hunt said, noting the animals, who are found in alpine terrain, will often look for shelter in wheel wells or engines. “The minerals that come off the roads that are on the cars are attractive. Sometimes antifreeze can have a sweet taste that attracts animals,” she said. Ratzlaff thinks, in his case, the marmot climbed onto the truck’s skid plate and that’s how she managed to hang on at highway speeds. “The drive shaft is right there and spinning, so you wouldn’t wanna get your fuzzy tail wrapped around that,” he said. “It would’ve been a little bit dodgy, for sure.” Hunt says it’s important that hikers check their vehicles before leaving the mountains to make sure a marmot isn’t tucked away somewhere. “If you’re in the mountains, always make sure before you drive away that you bang on your hood, you bang on the car, beep the horn,” she said. “Give it a few minutes just to make sure you’re not bringing anything back to the city that shouldn’t be in the city.” “They like to chew up your wiring,” Ratzlaff added. “We had ours checked out and our cars are fine but as hitchhikers go, they can be pretty expensive.” The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country. Leah Pelletier, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Rocky Mountain Outlook
