Twenty-seventh year of the Alpine marmot introduction in the agricultural landscape of the Central Massif (France)

A small population of Alpine marmots was introduced near the top of the Mézenc Massif (France) in 1980 and reinforced 7 times until 1991. An annual monitoring was performed since 1988. It took 12 years to the population size to reach the number of marmots released. Afterwards the population doubled every 7 years, despite several population crashes (in 1997 and 2001). The currently censused 492 marmots were distributed into 86 sites on an area of about 200 km2 in 2007. A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of demographic and environmental parameters of each site showed that marmots preferred, these last years, anthropogenic sites (meadows, dry stone walls, elevation under 1200 m) where reproduction rate was highest. Thus, marmots are now competing with farmers for space. In the same time, tourism increased strongly, especially tourism related to marmot spotting. The interactions between the presence of marmots in this agricultural environment and human activities are described, and their consequences are considered in the context of the sustainable development of the Mézenc Massif.