Key Takeaways
- UCLA ecologist Daniel Blumstein and his "Marmateers" lab launched a free, G-rated OnlyFans account called OnlyMarms to share daily yellow-bellied marmot videos and raise money for their 60-year research project after the NSF rejected their grant proposals three times.
- The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory study, the world’s second-oldest continuous individually marked mammal project after Jane Goodall’s chimps, is scrambling for support as more than $700 million in NSF grants have been frozen or cut and hundreds of RMBL grants have been terminated.
A UCLA scientist running one of the world's longest-running mammal studies has turned to an unlikely source for fundraising: OnlyFans.
Daniel Blumstein, co-director of The Marmot Project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado, launched a free account called OnlyMarms after the National Science Foundation rejected his team's grant applications three times.
The account posts near-daily photos and videos of yellow-bellied marmots burrowing, playing, and hauling plants back to their dens in the Colorado Rockies.
"Marmots have money troubles, and I figured why not if we launch an OnlyFans site?" Blumstein, who leads a group who’ve dubbed themselves "The Marmateers," told TODAY. "This is G-rated, cute animals doing things."
Blumstein said the OnlyFans idea came to him in June while sitting in a field in Gothic, Colorado, waiting for the marmots to move on a slow morning. He was partly inspired by the Apple TV+ series Margo's Got Money Troubles, about a single mother who turns to the platform.
When he brought the concept back to his lab, his students immediately endorsed it. "I brought that idea back to the lab. One of my students is like, 'Great idea!'" he recalled. "Someone else screamed out, 'OnlyMarms!' I'm like, 'Oh yeah!'"
The Marmot Project has tracked individually marked yellow-bellied marmots continuously since 1962, making it the second-oldest study of its kind in the world, behind only Jane Goodall's chimpanzee research. The football-sized ground squirrels, native to western North America, spend up to eight months a year in hibernation. Blumstein took over the project from its founder in 2001.
The funding squeeze extends well beyond one lab. More than $700 million in NSF grants have been frozen or cut since the Trump administration's return to office, according to the Brennan Center, and hundreds of grants to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory alone were terminated, per June court filings.
If you'd like to donate, you can also do so via UCLA's giving page.
