Marmots are usually shy and don’t like interacting with people, but a colony of Alpine marmots in Austria has taken a liking to a teenage boy who has been visiting them ever since he was three years old.
Matteo Walch, a 14-year-old boy from Innsbruck, first made international news headlines back in 2012, when photos of him literally rubbing noses with marmots from a colony in Groslocker , in the Austrian Alps, went viral. He was eight-years-old at the time, but he had been visiting his furry friends every year since age three, and for some unknown reason they had taken a liking to him. The boy’s mother, who took the pictures of Matteo and the marmots, says that the large rodents are not afraid of him because they understands that he loves them and would do nothing to hurt them. Six years after wowing the world with his uncanny bond with marmots, Matteo Walch still visits his cuddly friends and they are closer than ever.
