Cash-strapped marmots bare all on OnlyFans – but keep their fur on

Yellow-bellied marmots are the latest stars on OnlyFans, though anyone expecting racy material will find the performers fully furred.

Daniel Blumstein, a UCLA professor and co-director of the Marmot Project at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, launched the account to raise money for the long-running field study after federal funding cuts left its future uncertain.

Cheekily named OnlyMarms, the page promises “uncensored marmot content”. That actually means family-friendly videos of the chubby rodents scurrying through meadows, sunbathing and popping out of their burrows.

The Marmot Project began in 1962 and is the world’s second-longest study of individually identified mammals, behind only Jane Goodall’s research on chimpanzees in Tanzania, which started in 1960.

Blumstein took over its day-to-day management in 2001 and is spending his 25th summer following the animals.

The project studies one of the 15 recognised marmot species found across the Northern Hemisphere. Because yellow-bellied marmots are neither threatened nor endangered, scientists can use them to study how animal populations respond to environmental and ecological changes.

Such research takes decades, which is precisely what makes it valuable – and difficult to fund.

The project’s founder, behavioural ecologist Ken Armitage, received 41 consecutive years of support from the National Science Foundation, followed by another 11 years under Blumstein.

More recent proposals have been rejected, however, and Blumstein’s department has lost about a third of its teaching support.

‘Marmots got money problems’

The idea for OnlyMarms came to him while he was sitting in an empty meadow, waiting for marmots to appear and apparently having plenty of time to think.

Blumstein and his wife had recently watched the television series Margo’s Got Money Troubles, in which Elle Fanning plays a single mother who joins OnlyFans to support herself.

“Marmots got money troubles,” Blumstein recalled thinking. Why not an OnlyFans account, but with marmots?

One student groaned when he floated the idea. Another came up with OnlyMarms.

Since launching in late May, OnlyMarms has attracted about 1,700 fans and more than US$5,000 (S$6,400) in tips. After OnlyFans takes its share, the laboratory is expected to receive about US$4,000.

Supporters also created an OnlyMarms memecoin, which Blumstein initially suspected was a scam. The token has since generated about US$75,000 in transaction fees.

The videos feature marmots behaving as marmots do. In one, a female chases a male from her burrow after he gets a little too comfortable. In another, a female dubbed the “queen of the town” poses in the sun.

The researchers avoid giving them human names because doing so could introduce bias into their work. Instead, the marmots are marked with dye and assigned names such as “dans_hat,” “open_kite” and “Citroen”.

The project is preparing for its first Fat Marmot Week, a late-August bracket tournament inspired by Alaska’s Fat Bear Week. The public will vote for its favourite portly rodent as the animals bulk up for hibernation.

Marmots can double or triple their weight before winter, making the contest both a celebration of rodent body positivity and a matter of survival.

“It’s fun to root for the chunkiest marmot,” Blumstein said.

OnlyFans is unlikely to raise enough money by itself to protect the project from spending cuts. Blumstein hopes, however, that OnlyMarms will draw attention to the broader struggle facing universities and long-term ecological research.