Marmots, a warning for those who have never met them...

[librarian]

Marmots, or Murmeltier, look cute on wildlife programmes. They have a funny little warning call, and even when you are close, they often stay quite visible, watching you in order to warn their little Marmot friends of your approach. They run across the rocky mountainside with a movement much like a very fat otter, pausing every now and then, their fat little tails making a strange flicking motion.

All this just makes you want to smile! What sweet creatures!

Don't be fooled. Marmots spend the whole of the summer pigging out. They want to get fat, ready for a long hibernation. They are clever, like one of their nearest relations, the squirrel. This means they are also clever opportunists.

At 3:00am, my friend was disturbed in his sleep by the vague sensation of his tent collapsing. He awoke to find a neat half meter incision at the narrow end of his tent.

The cute little bastards had neatly broken in, and removed two sealed stuff sacks, just by his head. These contained all our muesli, dried fruits, our Power bars, our chocolate, two packs of instant risotto Milanese, and a quantity of chewing gum.

They did this with a speed, skill and precision, that might make them ideal candidates for some sort of Mission Impossible gambit.

In the morning we found the chocolate wrappers, the Power bar wrappers, and the neatly unwrapped (and rejected) chewing gum. I suppose they took the risotto back to their warren, where they probably have a nice big heavy pan, butter, and extra parmesan to finish.

Bastards!

Our only consolation is that they are simply not sophisticated enough to think of freshening their breath. As to what they will use the stuff sacks for (we never found them) the mind boggles.

Marmot you either love it or hate it.