A UCLA animal research team is taking an unusual route to keep a decades-long field study on marmots alive.
After federal research cuts left funding in doubt, the scientists launched an "OnlyMarms," referencing the adult content website OnlyFans. The team now regularly uploads videos and research to the site showing the wild marmots.
What happened?
Daniel Blumstein, a biologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, came up with the idea while waiting for marmots in a field near Gothic, Colorado, The New York Times reported.
The team later set up a free OnlyFans page, according to the Times, where it shares videos of wild marmots digging, eating, and scrambling over rocks and asks viewers to leave tips for the lab's research. And of course, there is no nudity involved.
"It's going to be G-rated, and we're not going to sexualize this. We're just going to have fun with sharing," Blumstein told the outlet.
But creating the account also brought an unexpected, although admittedly funny, problem. Blumstein needed to upload his driver's license for verification, and the platform flagged that the person on the ID did not match the marmots featured in the posts.
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"I don't look like the marmot," he told the Times.
So far, the page has drawn in 112 subscribers and brought in about $650 in tips, far short of what the team needs to maintain its long-running field study, according to the outlet.
Why does it matter?
In Colorado, Blumstein and his colleagues follow yellow-bellied marmots over time to study their behavior, family lines, and responses to environmental change, the Times reported. That research can also help scientists better understand broader ecological changes that affect people.
Blumstein said such long-term animal behavior studies are uncommon, with very few lasting more than three years. When funding dries up, researchers lose the ability to observe slow changes that only become clear over time.
The decisions by the federal government to defund science can slow progress toward a healthier, more resilient future by weakening the research communities rely on to understand environmental risks and protect wildlife.
Researchers and students lose time, job stability, and opportunities to do meaningful work when they have to scramble for survival funding instead of focusing on science.
It can even lead to more OnlyMarms pages.
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