The Associated Press reported on a UCLA-led effort to raise funds for a project surveying marmots in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where the population declined by two-thirds during last year’s hibernation due to insufficient snow cover. Like Fat Bear Week, Fat Marmot Week is mostly for fun, but it also has a serious side: Scientists need to drum up donations to sustain their long-running research into the rodents amid federal funding cuts. “In some sense, we’re going to be laughing our way down as the Titanic sinks,” said Dan Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Marmot Project. “Because what else are you going to do?” (UCLA’s Emily Renkey and Katie Adler were also quoted.) Read more about UCLA in today’s Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and other outlets.