Rescuers are asking anyone who recently drove back from Tahoe, Yosemite or Burning Man to check their vehicles
NEED TO KNOW
- Two yellow-bellied marmots were found far from their mountain habitat in San Francisco and Antioch, California
- Wildlife rescuers believe the marmots hitched rides in vehicles, possibly from areas like Tahoe or Yosemite
- The marmots are recovering as rescuers work to return them to their original alpine territory
Two mountain-dwelling marmots have turned up hundreds of miles from home in the San Francisco Bay Area and wildlife rescuers suspect the furry stowaways hitched a ride in someone’s car.
Yellow-bellied marmots typically live in rocky burrows high in the Sierra Nevada, so experts were baffled when one was found in San Francisco’s Mission District in early September, spotted eating flowers in a garden. Less than a week later, a second marmot was captured at a job site in Antioch, Calif., according to the Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue (YUWR).
“Unbelievably, a second yellow-bellied marmot was spotted (loitering) at a job site in Antioch,” the rescue wrote in a Sept. 10 Facebook post, adding that the animal had been “safely captured and is now recovering at our wildlife center as we try to discover its origin story.” Both marmots are now recovering at the rescue.
“This is one of the stranger cases we’ve handled,” a YUWR spokesperson told KRON4…