Phil, the most famous groundhog in the United States, will announce this Thursday if there will be six more weeks of winter or if spring will come earlier, thus inaugurating the celebration for
Groundhog Day
.
The popular rodent will be brought out of its burrow first thing in the morning and cheered by thousands of people in a small Pennsylvania town called Punxsutawney.
Phil is not only the most acclaimed forecaster: he is the protagonist of one of the most popular folklore traditions.
Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow predicting an early spring on February 2, 2019 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
The animal appeared in the film
Groundhog Day,
and met former President Ronald Reagan and host Oprah Winfrey.
But for years, animal advocates have been demanding that he be left alone.
What is Groundhog Day?
For 136 years, people have flocked to the popular Gobbler's Knob Park in the town of Punxsutawney, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, to wait for the famous rodent, whose full name is Punxsutawney Phil, "seer of seers, the forecaster." of all tipsters”, as the organizers of the event call it, the Groundhog Club.
Groundhog handler AJ Derume holds Punxsutawney Phil, who saw his shadow, on Groundhog Day, on February 2, 2022, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
On February 2 at dawn, Phil wakes up, comes out of his burrow and tells the president of the club in "groundhog" language if he has seen his shadow and then he reveals the prediction.
Tradition says that
if Phil sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter.
And if he doesn't see her, warmer temperatures can be expected: spring will come sooner.
Phil is immortal?
According to legend, Phil has been forecasting the weather since 1886, thanks to a "groundhog punch" or "elixir of life" that he takes once a year in the fall.
Although in reality the life expectancy of a marmot is usually 3 to 5 years, and in captivity they can live more than 15 years.
So
the animal has had to be replaced at least a dozen times over this time.
When did the tradition start?
This tradition of Christian origin began in Germany on Candlemas Day, which is celebrated on February 2, and Germans who settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th century brought the custom to the United States, according to event organizers.
Groundhog Day first appeared in the local newspaper, the Punxsutawney Spirit, in 1886, and the following year it was officially celebrated for the first time at Gobbler's Knob.
Journal of James Morris from Morgantown, February 4, 1841, first recorded Groundhog Day in the US. The journal is on file with the Historical Society of Berks County, Pennsylvania.Bill Uhrich/MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Although Phil the groundhog is the most famous, more than a dozen states celebrate it with their own groundhogs, such as General Beauregard Lee in Georgia, Buckeye Chuck in Ohio or Charles G. Hogg in New York, and it is also celebrated in Canada.
Does it really fit?
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the groundhog has not always predicted the start of spring well: in the last 10 years, only 50% of its predictions were correct.
And according to a study published in 2001 in the journal of the American Mathematical Association, The College Mathematics Journal, it has been correct 70.4% of the time.
Last year the rodent predicted six more weeks of winter, the same in 2021, while in 2020 it predicted that spring would come earlier.
Phil the groundhog predicts that winter will last six more weeks
Feb 3, 202100:32
From visiting Reagan to being the lead in a movie
Phil not only attracts thousands of onlookers, he also attracted celebrities and politicians.
In 1989 he traveled to Washington DC to meet with then-President Ronald Reagan and years later, in 1993, he became more popular thanks to his appearance in the film
Groundhog Day
(known as
Caught in Time
in Spain,
Groundhog Day
or
Spell of time in the rest of Latin America)
, starring actor Bill Murray.
A movie screen at the Snappy Burger and drive-in burger stand displays footage of cast members Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell before screening the film 'Groundhog Day' during the Groundhog Day celebration on February 2, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The film tells the story of Phil Connors, an arrogant meteorologist who is sent to cover the famous festival in Punxsutawney and finds himself trapped in time and forced to repeat that February 2nd over and over again in an infinite cycle that can make anyone desperate. and that in pop culture it has become a way of defining when a situation is repetitive: "I feel like Groundhog Day."
In 1995, Phil appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where his handler recounted that the event had gotten "too big" after the movie.
In defense of the groundhog
Animal activists have been criticizing this tradition for years.
The organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in English) has insisted to the president of the Groundhog Club of Punxsutawney, Tom Dunkel, that they
let Phil retire
in exchange for "allowing a PETA philanthropist to live in the sad Phil's compound and take his place by predicting the weather with at least the same accuracy," says the statement from the organization's president, Ingrid Newkirk.
“As we have already pointed out before, it is time to abandon this old tradition.
Phil is a groundhog, not a meteorologist."
She adds that if the club sends Phil and his partner, Phyllis, to an accredited sanctuary, an activist "will be delighted to travel to Pennsylvania to take Phil's place" and "live as she does now in the town library and broadcast live her humdrum life all year long and giving an equally unscientific weather forecast on February 2, even wearing a groundhog costume if that's what the club wants."
“As we have already pointed out before, it is time to abandon this old tradition.
Phil is a groundhog, not a meteorologist.
He did not consent to living in a library, where he cannot hibernate, dig, excavate, explore or choose what to do with himself as he would if he lived in the wild," the statement added.
Nearly 30,000 visitors wait for the Punxsutawney Phil, on February 2, 2019, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
"For over a century, Punxsutawney has been known for this horrible thing: forcing a shy animal out into the cold, subjecting it to crowds of people, and treating it like an object, all so it can make a completely unreliable 'prediction'." , keep going.
The organization has in previous years suggested using a robotic marmot instead of a real animal and has previously denounced that these animals are by nature "shy and sensitive prey animals that react badly when handled in front of noisy crowds."
In fact, in 2015 a groundhog named Jimmy bit off the ear of a Wisconsin mayor.
