Regarding marmots:
Interesting... I've not seen that story before. Google can't find the same text anywhere else, either. From the spelling and comments, I am not sure how reliable it is.
i'm not sure if we are talking about the same article, but go
here for a fresno bee published article.
the story, as seen in the previous post, is found in the "comments" below that article.
maybe we were lucky, but as we were not aware that there might be a problem - we couldn't worry about it. and, no problems.
i would hate to be stuck out there though. not much nearby.