Meet Austria’s young marmot whisperer. Eight-year-old Matteo Walch’s friendship with a clan of Alpine animals has spanned more than half his lifetime.“When we come, they run straight to him,” Matteo’s mother, Michaela Walch, a mathematics teacher and amateur photographer, told TODAY.com.

The mother-and-son team have been traveling from their home in Innsbruck to Hohe Tauern National Park in Grossglockner to spend time with the large ground squirrels since Matteo was just 3 years old.Like a horse whisperer or dog whisperer, the schoolboy has an uncanny ability to interact with the normally skittish wild animals — even greeting them nose to nose and having them climb in his lap

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