{"id":26270,"date":"2026-08-03T16:48:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26270"},"modified":"2026-08-03T16:48:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:48:21","slug":"marmots-got-money-troubles-ucla-scientists-turn-to-onlyfans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26270","title":{"rendered":"Marmots got money troubles: UCLA scientists turn to OnlyFans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-element=\"story-body\" data-subscriber-content=\"\">\n<p>Looking for some <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-2010-jul-22-la-sci-0722-climate-change-marmots-20100722-story.html\">marmot content<\/a>? Try OnlyFans or, rather, OnlyMarms.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at a UCLA-affiliated marmot research lab launched an OnlyFans account to post videos of marmots captured in the wild as a way to help generate funding for their work and offset <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2026-07-28\/here-are-all-ways-that-trump-has-tried-to-kill-u-s-science-research\">federal cuts to universities<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Since it debuted at the end of May, the account known as \u201cOnlyMarms\u201d has posted several dozen videos. In one, a female marmot known as \u201c1\u201d chases away a curious male named \u201cG\u201d as he pokes around her burrow, screeching as they go. <\/p>\n<p>In another, a marmot eyes the game camera, getting closer and closer to the lens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are wild animals, so it\u2019s important for people to know that we are just getting footage of them in their natural environment,\u201d said Emily Renkey, a first-year graduate student in the Blumstein Lab at UCLA. \u201cWe\u2019re just framing it as a way to be in the field observing marmots with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unlike much of the not-suitable-for-work content on OnlyFans, \u201cOnlyMarms\u201d is G-rated, though an occasional scuffle might make it more PG, said Dan Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-director of the Marmot Project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-blumstein\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/104\/2022\/07\/Salsbury_etal_2022_JM.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Behavioral and physiological ecologist Ken Armitage<\/a>, who died in 2022, began his marmot research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in 1962. His study of the yellow-bellied marmot remains one of the longest-running studies of its kind. <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rmbl.org\/article\/science-story-july-2022\/\" target=\"_blank\">Blumstein assumed responsibility for the project in 2003<\/a> when Armitage retired.<\/p>\n<p>Blumstein came up with the idea for the OnlyFans account while sitting in a meadow, waiting for marmots to appear and pondering the state of scientific funding for his work.<\/p>\n<p>Due to federal funding cuts, universities have slashed the number of graduate students who receive financial support for their work. For a lab like Blumstein\u2019s, that means fewer graduate students to oversee long-term marmot studies that can extend for years and generate important data.<\/p>\n<p>He had watched the Apple TV comedy \u201c<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/tv\/story\/2026-04-15\/margos-got-money-troubles-elle-fanning-michelle-pfeiffer-nick-offerman\">Margo\u2019s Got Money Troubles<\/a>\u201d about a new mom who turns to OnlyFans as a way to pay the bills, and thought to himself that, well, marmots got money troubles, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s creating a real challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a great teachable moment, not just about marmots, but about the sad state of scientific funding, the value of long-term scientific research and keeping a project alive that we think is valuable to society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Already, the account has 1,700 fans and has raked in $5,000 in tips. After OnlyFans takes its cut, the lab will net about $4,000. Additional fans of the marmots launched a memecoin cryptocurrency called OnlyMarms, which has resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in trading fees for the lab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe marmots don\u2019t know how famous they are,\u201d Renkey said with a laugh.<\/p>\n<p>The lab also sees the OnlyFans account as a way to communicate their scientific research to the general public. It already <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/rmblmarmotproject?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\">runs an Instagram account<\/a> and is planning for the first Fat Marmot Week later this month \u2014 a competition about which marmot will put on the most weight to prepare for hibernation, similar to the <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/katm\/learn\/nature\/fat-bear-week-past-and-present.htm\" target=\"_blank\">National Park Service\u2019s<\/a> <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world-nation\/story\/2023-10-11\/national-park-services-fat-bear-week-winner-128-grazer\">Fat Bear Week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m surprised by the overwhelming international interest in marmots, the enthusiasm for this idea and just the sort of understanding that this is making the best of a bad job,\u201d Blumstein said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking for some marmot content? Try OnlyFans or, rather, OnlyMarms. Researchers at a UCLA-affiliated marmot research lab launched an OnlyFans account to post videos of marmots captured in the wild as a way to help generate funding for their work and offset federal cuts to universities. Since it debuted at the end of May, the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/368717c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1791x940+0+83\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1c%2Fc8%2F45d6830b4c01a33b443169d4fa9c%2Fscreenshot-marmot-project.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}