Faced with a funding shortage for a long-term study of marmots, researchers came up with a creative way to raise money: Posting cute, wholesome marmot videos on a website known for sexually charged content.
An OnlyMarms account has been live on the OnlyFans website since June. So far, it has raised about $4,000, research scientist Daniel Blumstein told Cowboy State Daily.
OnlyFans is a subscriber-based site that features mostly racy content from human creators willing to bare all for a fee.
OnlyMarms subverts that paradigm, inviting subscribers to skip the steamy content and instead pay a fee to be entertained by videos of the adorable, chubby rodents’ antics.
“People are pretty generous,” and the marmot content has gotten rave reviews, said Blumstein, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA.
For roughly 60 years, UCLA researchers have studied a colony of yellow-bellied marmots near Crested Butte, Colorado.
Funding for the program recently started to run dry in the wake of massive federal cuts to research grants.
(Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory via OnlyMarms) 
(Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory via OnlyMarms) 
(Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory via OnlyMarms) 
(Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory via OnlyMarms)
‘OnlyMarms!’
Universities across the country are struggling with research funding, and UCLA is no exception, said Blumstein, an ecologist and conservation biologist.
His department recently lost its third graduate-student teaching assistant and it’s been tough keeping the marmot project fully staffed, Blumstein said.
Annual expenses run about $75,000 to $100,000, he said.
While recently in the field, he was pondering a solution.
“I spend a lot of time in meadows, watching nothing, waiting for marmots to emerge,” he said. “That gives me time to think.”
Then he had an epiphany. If OnlyFans generates dollars for exhibitionist humans, why wouldn’t it work for lovable marmots?
Back at the lab, he and his research assistants brainstormed what to title their OnlyFans account.
“Somebody blurted out, ‘OnlyMarms!’ And we said, ‘Yes, OnlyMarms!’” he said.
Can’t Match A Marmot Picture
They selected a particularly adorable marmot photo to serve as the account’s profile picture, and Blumstein set about setting up the account.
Right away, he hit a snag. As an adults-only site, OnlyFans has a rigorous screening process for new creators, he said.
“They’re serious about getting age verification,” he said, noting that includes the account’s profile photo.
“I’m never going to match a picture of a marmot,” Blumstein said.
He finally convinced the site’s administrators that although the marmot’s age couldn’t be verified, he, as an adult human, was the one responsible for the account.
‘Why Not?’
Wyoming wildlife biologist Robert Crabtree said research funding shortages are a real problem, so he appreciates the OnlyMarms approach.
“In this day and age, with severe cuts in funding for research, this is an innovative way to make up the shortfall,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Hats off to these marmot researchers.”
Crabtree is the founder, chief scientist and president of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center and specializes in wild canines, such as wolves and coyotes.
Marmots are outside of his field of expertise, but he appreciates their charisma.
“They are cute, they are adorable,” he said.
And getting marmots into the public eye, even on an erotica website, can bring attention to wildlife as public-trust resources, he said.
“Why not?” he said of using OnlyFans as a platform. “We are trying to get the public interested in resources that are public trust resources.”
Who Knows What’s Next?
While the OnlyMarms account has certainly helped, Blumstein said he doesn’t expect it to fully fund his department.
People who might have misgivings about subscribing to OnlyFans can donate directly to the department or the university, he added.
Asked whether other researchers might follow in his footsteps and launch their own OnlyFans accounts — OnlyBears, OnlySquirrels? — Blumstein said he’s unsure.
“We shall see. I mean, who knows?” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
