Olympic marmot Marmota olympus standing and looking around in a meadow. This marmot is endemic to the Olympic Peninsula, in Washington State, USA. The advancing ice during the ice age caused many animals and plants to be isolated on the higher ridges surrounded by the ice, and over thousands of years they differentiated from continental US biodiversity. The Olympic marmot is a social animal that lives in family groups in networks of burrows in alpine and sub_alpine regions. It feeds primarily on leaves, shoots and roots. Filmed on the Hurricane Ridge Trail in Olympic National Park.