Ahh, dispersal season again

We've been having so much fun watching yearlings play...a very important thing for their development, but alas, this will all come to an end soon. Soon there will be new litters to catch and mark and the current crop of yearlings...most of them...will disperse.  Shannon, RMBL's GIS guru sent me this photo of the LAZY way to disperse...

Yup, that's a marmot in her Subaru...

Things are looking up...

The road to Gothic was formally opened yesterday and the valley is transformed! Down valley Spring has arrived and we're about to resume trapping. Up valley it's still winter (the road is closed and we're skiing to sites) and we've been trying to re-mark a few unmarked individuals but marmots are STILL emerging from hibernation only to find nothing to eat. There are multiple bears up there and Gina saw a mountain lion running across a meadow the other day!

With the road open we have all sorts of visitors, including this fella that Sam and I had appear about 20-30 m in front of us while we were wondering what the marmots at River Mound were calling at.

Question answered!

The deer have just returned to Gothic. 4 does ran nervously into town and set off L this morning. Why do marmots alarm call in response to deer? I have no idea!

Meanwhile, Dandelion continues his rule of the roost. Young from two different litters (Stitches and WiFi) were foraging near each other around the Gothic Community Center and got into a vocal squabble beneath a parked car. Dandi, tail flagging away, ran over, and disciplined each of them in turn. No more squabbles! I've NEVER seen this happen before. Very cute.