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Researchers at a UCLA-affiliated marmot research lab launched an OnlyFans account to post videos of marmots captured in the wild as a way to help generate funding for their work and offset federal cuts to universities.
Since it debuted at the end of May, the account known as “OnlyMarms” has posted several dozen videos. In one, a female marmot known as “1” chases away a curious male named “G” as he pokes around her burrow, screeching as they go.
In another, a marmot eyes the game camera, getting closer and closer to the lens.
“These are wild animals, so it’s important for people to know that we are just getting footage of them in their natural environment,” said Emily Renkey, a first-year graduate student in the Blumstein Lab at UCLA. “We’re just framing it as a way to be in the field observing marmots with us.”
Unlike much of the not-suitable-for-work content on OnlyFans, “OnlyMarms” is G-rated, though an occasional scuffle might make it more PG, said Dan Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-director of the Marmot Project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado.
Behavioral and physiological ecologist Ken Armitage, who died in 2022, began his marmot research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in 1962. His study of the yellow-bellied marmot remains one of the longest-running studies of its kind. Blumstein assumed responsibility for the project in 2003 when Armitage retired.
Blumstein came up with the idea for the OnlyFans account while sitting in a meadow, waiting for marmots to appear and pondering the state of scientific funding for his work.
Due to federal funding cuts, universities have slashed the number of graduate students who receive financial support for their work. For a lab like Blumstein’s, that means fewer graduate students to oversee long-term marmot studies that can extend for years and generate important data.
He had watched the Apple TV comedy “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” about a new mom who turns to OnlyFans as a way to pay the bills, and thought to himself that, well, marmots got money troubles, too.
“It’s creating a real challenge,” he said. “This is a great teachable moment, not just about marmots, but about the sad state of scientific funding, the value of long-term scientific research and keeping a project alive that we think is valuable to society.”
Already, the account has 1,700 fans and has raked in $5,000 in tips. After OnlyFans takes its cut, the lab will net about $4,000. Additional fans of the marmots launched a memecoin cryptocurrency called OnlyMarms, which has resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in trading fees for the lab.
“The marmots don’t know how famous they are,” Renkey said with a laugh.
The lab also sees the OnlyFans account as a way to communicate their scientific research to the general public. It already runs an Instagram account and is planning for the first Fat Marmot Week later this month — a competition about which marmot will put on the most weight to prepare for hibernation, similar to the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Week.
“I’m surprised by the overwhelming international interest in marmots, the enthusiasm for this idea and just the sort of understanding that this is making the best of a bad job,” Blumstein said.
