San Francisco Wildlife Rescue Searches for Origin of Mystery Marmot
A San Francisco wildlife refuge is searching for clues about the origin of a striped stowaway — a yellow-bellied marmot, found in the Mission District this week.
Lila Travis, founder and director of the Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue in Potrero Hill, said San Francisco Animal Care and Control received calls from neighbors on Albion Street near 16th Street, who spotted the marmot, a type of chunky, golden-chested ground squirrel.
“Imagine,” Travis said, “These are cat-sized, giant rodents. And they love to eat flowers. So it must have been a very bizarre experience to go out into your backyard and see this unusual rodent.”
Marmots — the largest in the squirrel family — typically live in burrows in mountainous, rocky habitats, like in the eastern Sierra or Tahoe. As true hibernators, marmots spend all summer packing on fat for the long winter, sometimes reaching up to 15 pounds.
The critters are known, she said, for staking out parking lots near parks and camping sites to crawl under car hoods and dine on wires, brake lines and radiator hoses — looking for a fix of salt and sweet, sticky antifreeze.
“They have a missing electrolyte that they think is going to be satisfied by this radiator fluid, but it’s not,” Travis said. “It just makes them sick. And they will sometimes be transported to strange places because of the car being driven off.”
Now, Travis is reaching out to the public to investigate how the marmot got here. The center put out a call on social media to find residents in the area who may have returned recently from Lake Tahoe or Burning Man, and may have passed through high elevations, with the marmot in tow.
“I just came back from Black Rock City,” one person wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “My only stop was to sleep at a gas station before I jumped onto Hwy 80. Was very early morning and I slept for three hours. I’m at 17th & Dolores and my car has been parked here since 10am.”
Travis said if the center can’t track down the source, she’ll request a transfer to the Tahoe Wildlife Center, which will know a good location to release the marmot.
“We want to get him back home. But where is his home?” Travis said. ”We’re looking for someone who might recently have spent time in the alpine high Sierras — in marmot territory — and unwittingly brought this guy down. We just want to know where he came from originally, so that we can take him back to his family.”
Travis recommended that people traveling to and from the Sierras look into “marmot-proofing” their vehicles, either by checking under the hood for signs of chewing or by covering wheel wells.
Yggdrasil, San Francisco’s only wildlife refuge, takes in around 1,000 wild animals per year — mainly squirrels, opossums, raccoons, skunks and “lots of baby hummingbirds,” Travis said.
The center, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, was originally founded out of Travis’ house and self-funded with eBay auctions of Lord of the Rings memorabilia, Travis said.
“It was really funny and fun, and all the proceeds went to taking care of the animals,” she said.
Today, the 100% volunteer- and donation-funded refuge operates out of foster homes all over the Bay Area, with an on-site facility on Potrero Hill. Travis said she’s hoping to expand its footprint with a bigger space, potentially in partnership with the Port of San Francisco.
“Remember, this is the city of San Francisco, named after Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals,” Travis said. “We think that what we do, wildlife rehabilitation, and having compassion towards animals is an important way that we can contribute to San Francisco and the world in general.”