An Airdrie family says a marmot hitched a ride on their truck from Kananaskis Country, roamed Cooper\u2019s Crossing for several days and then returned to the same garage.<\/p>\n
Chris Ratzlaff said his wife had been hiking at the Ptarmigan Cirque Interpretive Trail the previous Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
She returned home and closed the garage without noticing anything unusual.<\/p>\n
Later that evening, while Ratzlaff\u2019s wife was away from the house, one of their adult children went into the garage to retrieve something and quickly returned.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff said the child announced, \u201cThere\u2019s a creature in the garage.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The animal was described as slightly larger than the family\u2019s dog.<\/p>\n
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Ratzlaff, who runs the Alberta Aurora Chasers Facebook page, said his children are in their 20s, so he trusted that something unusual was in the garage.<\/p>\n
Still, he said the word \u201ccreature\u201d gave him little indication of what he was about to find.<\/p>\n
He cautiously entered the garage and spotted the animal hiding in a corner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not anticipating something that large, for sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Family initially suspects porcupine<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought was a porcupine,\u201d Ratzlaff said.<\/p>\n
He opened the garage door and waited for the animal to leave rather than attempting to approach it.<\/p>\n
Once it moved into the open, the family could see it was not a porcupine.<\/p>\n
After doing some research and asking a few people, Ratzlaff identified the animal as a hoary marmot.<\/p>\n
He said he had learned more about marmots during the previous week than he had known before the encounter.<\/p>\n
After the family sent his wife a photograph, she connected the animal to her Kananaskis hike earlier that day.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff later wrote on Facebook that the marmot had hitched a ride on the family\u2019s truck from Kananaskis.<\/p>\n
Sightings spread through Cooper\u2019s Crossing<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff posted about the marmot in a Cooper\u2019s Crossing community Facebook group as it was leaving the garage.<\/p>\n
Residents began sharing advice, photographs and sightings from around the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
One person shared a photograph taken near a local Save-On-Foods, while another reported seeing the marmot hiding beneath a car.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff contacted an animal organization, but the marmot was already roaming freely.<\/p>\n
He said the organization sent someone to search for it the following day, but the animal could not be found.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff wrote on Facebook that the marmot wandered through the neighbourhood for several days as community members continued reporting sightings.<\/p>\n
Marmot returns to same garage<\/p>\n
Several days later, the marmot returned to the family\u2019s garage.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff said the garage door had been open for a few hours before it was closed.<\/p>\n
His wife later discovered the marmot inside again.<\/p>\n
The family believed it was the same animal.<\/p>\n
Ratzlaff joked that the marmot may have remembered the garage as the place where it could catch a ride home.<\/p>\n
The family contacted the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society<\/a>, which later attended and captured the animal.<\/p>\n Video posted by Ratzlaff shows the marmot inside the garage.<\/p>\n Marmot healthy and awaiting return<\/p>\n Ratzlaff said the society gave the marmot a health check and told him she was \u201chealthy and feisty.\u201d<\/p>\n As of Tuesday, Aug. 4, the marmot remained in the society\u2019s care.<\/p>\n She was expected to be returned to Kananaskis Country later in the week.<\/p>\n Alberta\u2019s largest ground squirrel<\/p>\n Parks Canada says hoary marmots live mainly in upper subalpine and alpine ecoregions.<\/p>\n They are the largest ground squirrels and can weigh as much as 15 kilograms.<\/p>\n The animals spend about three months each year eating wildflowers, grasses and seeds before hibernating underground in large groups for the remaining nine months.<\/p>\n Hoary marmots may be seen sunning themselves on rocks or carrying out sentry duties.<\/p>\n When alarmed, they produce a loud whistle to warn nearby marmots before hurrying into a rocky burrow.<\/p>\n Why marmots hitch rides<\/p>\n