COLORADO
Dan Blumstein, the UCLA professor who runs the Marmot Project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory north of Crested Butte, Colorado, came up with a creative idea for saving a 64-year-old wildlife research project. When budget cuts hit, Blumstein was determined to keep his Marmot Project afloat. He told NPR that inspiration came to him after he and his wife watched the Apple TV show Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and he thought, well, “Marmot’s got money troubles,” too. But rather than a pornography-friendly account, Blumstein created the rodent-loving account “OnlyMarms” on the subscription platform OnlyFans. So, if you’re in the mood for some delightfully “uncensored marmot content,” check it out.
MONTANA
This story had us giggling raptor-ously: One fine morning, the 300-pound green dinosaur stationed outside the Dino Mart in Gardiner, Montana, went missing. Fortunately, the legendary Sinclair Oil mascot was quickly located, gazing serenely from a clifftop 10 miles away in Yankee Jim Canyon near Yellowstone National Park. Jacque Sims, who works at the Sinclair station, told KTVQ’s Q2 News: “To think that our dinosaur was sitting up in the canyon up there, it was funny. We were laughing all day.” The pranksters went to considerable trouble planning their heist, making sure to “capture” a dino far enough from the building to be unmonitored by cameras. Extracting the exceptional Apatosaurus wasn’t easy, and carting it off was even more challenging: “They literally had to unbolt it from the cement pad out here, and they re-bolted it up on a cliff,” Sims said. On a normal day, such a “grand theft dino” caper would get you arrested, but Sinclair management declined to file a police report. As we learned in Jurassic Park, “Life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers. … Life finds a way.” And so do big, green lovable dinosaurs.
WASHINGTON
Here’s a cat-aclysmic story straight out of a Disney movie: Sixty cats were found on an abandoned 40-foot sailboat anchored off Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington. “It started out as a welfare check,” Officer Shelbie Boyd told KUOW. The Tacoma Police initially sent out a marine services unit, but after finding dozens of abandoned cats and no human beings, they dispatched the animal control unit. Unlike DHS, the officers couldn’t deport the Feline American residents until they’d obtained the proper search warrants, so they simply left food and water and promised to come back later. When the animal control officers returned, they rescued 30 cats from the vessel. But more were hiding in nooks and crannies … a lot more, in fact. The police left out more food and water, acquired another warrant and returned once again. To root out the remaining rascals, they ultimately had to drill into the belly of the boat; cats are not inclined to obey authority figures. All in all, they rounded up 60 cats-away. And all of them were in pretty good shape, aside from being a little stressed out. A few cats had skin and fur issues, though most were wearing flea collars.
Which naturally raised the question: Who supplied those flea collars, and how did all those kitties wind up on a sailboat? Turns out a guy named Derek Hieb owned the vessel. But Hieb apparently fell on hard times, The Seattle Times reported, and was living on the boat during the COVID-19 pandemic when a friend gave him a cat named Missy. Missy had kittens, but Hieb couldn’t afford to get all of them spayed and neutered, and, well, nature took its course. As Ogden Nash noted: “The trouble with a kitten is THAT / Eventually it becomes a CAT.” And one cat soon followed another, until six years later, Hieb had dozens of furry roommates. He found work as a rigger and lived on the boat until right before police seized it. All 60 cats received medical attention at the Humane Society for Tacoma & Pierce County, and some may still be up for adoption. Check out Tacoma Humane’s adoption page under “Sailor Cat.”
WASHINGTON
What would we do without our marmots, cats and dinosaurs, not to mention Jimothy the Raccoon, Seattle’s sublimely spherical celebrity? We heartily concur with whoever wrote on Jimothy’s Facebook fan page: “It was July 2026. The sky was on fire and we couldn’t eat lettuce. Jimothy was our glimmer of hope. Our silver lining.” Ours, too. Rock on, Jimothy. We love you.
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This article appeared in the October 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
