Zia is one of the 'phone shed friends' who lost her mom to a fox kill when RMBL was still under a deep blanket of snow. billy saw the end--where the female fox had 'little man with a mohawk' by the neck and beat her against the snow until she was dead. Shocking.
Today, Zia got her revenge. From Gina's notes:
At 09:41 on 15 July 2019, Zia was perched and enjoying her day on Doctor's Log when the mother fox in town approached from down the road. Zia noticed the fox and rather than retreating back into her burrow, jumped off the perch, moved towards the fox, and crouched down in the vegetation waiting. The fox noticed her movement and began to slowly approach Zia. The fox then charged Zia and Zia charged the fox resulting in a fight. The fight was fast, lasting about 5 seconds and ended by the fox whimpering while retreating away from Zia. Zia returned to her perch, and signaled her victory with 256 alarm calls!
Moral of story: don't FOX with marmots!
Blumstein Lab at UCLA (Team Marmot) reports on adventures and research findings from our long-term study of yellow-bellied marmots at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado, U.S.A.
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