NPR Introduces Fat Marmot Week With Inaugural Champion Dawn

In the waning days of summer, when the natural world turns quietly toward rest, a marmot named Dawn has been lifted by public acclaim into an unlikely kind of fame. NPR's inaugural Fat Marmot Week invited ordinary people to celebrate a creature doing exactly what nature intended — growing gloriously round before the long sleep of winter. The event, decided by popular vote in late August 2026, suggests that communities still hunger for moments of shared, uncomplicated delight, and that joy, too, can be a form of wildlife appreciation.