Mascot of the Hour
You can call it a groundhog or a woodchuck or a whistle-pig or even a land-beaver.
Folklore states if a groundhog sees its shadow on Feb. 2, winter will continue for another six weeks.
Whatever it's called, the animal can draw thousands of people out in the middle of a frigid winter night in the middle of Pennsylvania because of a mythical connection between its shadow and the length of winter.
That annual ritual will be re-enacted again this weekend when the Inner Circle will climb Gobbler's Knob to determine if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and in doing so brings us six more weeks of winter.
Terry Wills, the game warden supervisor for the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Northwest Region that contains 10 counties including Butler, said groundhogs like Phil are as common as dirt in these parts.
Groundhogs are found throughout Pennsylvania in open fields, meadows, pastures, fencerows and woodland edges and even deep in the woods, according to the game commission.
Adults rarely move more than a half mile within their home ranges, preferring to stick close to the safety of the burrow.
“Woodchucks are considered in the rodent family, obviously a mammal that lives in holes in the ground, hibernates in the winter and eats vegetation,” Wills said.
Wills said, “They are extremely common in the northeast United States and throughout all of Pennsylvania.”
But Phil is a most uncommon woodchuck, counters Katie Donald, the executive director of the Groundhog Club of Punxsutawney, a nonprofit group whose 15 board members form the Inner Circle that interprets Phil's prophecies.
Donald claims Phil is 133 years old and is the original animal from the inaugural Groundhog's Day ceremony in 1886.
“Phil has a burrow in the Punxsutawney Library the rest of the year,” said Donald. “At an undisclosed time, the Inner Circle will take him to Gobbler's Knob.”
Gobbler's Knob, a little clearing at the top of a wooded hill, is owned by the Groundhog Club.
“Gobbler's Knob is outside of town about a mile and a half,” said Donald. “There's a stage and everything. We are in the process of constructing a visitor's center.”
It would come in handy this Groundhog's Day because Donald said the crowd which will start to gather at 3 a.m. to hear Phil's prophecy is expected to reach 25,000. The population of Punxsutawney is 5,500.
How a groundhog or any animal was associated with weather prediction is a mixture of agricultural and religious traditions, said Timothy Ruppert, professor of English at Slippery Rock University and a folklorist.
“The Pennsylvania Dutch brought the custom with them,” said Ruppert.
“Feb. 2 is Candlemas, a date that is associated with certain turns in the religious season,” said Ruppert. “In Ireland it is known as St. Brigid's Day and it was the start of the new year and the start of the agricultural year.”“There is a consistent pattern of people who depend on crop production, who need it to live, of having a pattern of stories, people and figures connected with the success of growing and harvest seasons,” said Ruppert.“It used to be gods and goddesses. Now, it's less magical,” he said. “The concept is more embodied in actual living creatures.”Ruppert added, “In France, it's a bear. Here, it's a groundhog.”Punxsutawney was settled by Germans. In German lore, if a hedgehog saw his shadow on Candlemas Day there would be six more weeks of bad weather.As German settlers came to the United States, they brought their traditions and folklore. With the absence of hedgehogs in the New World, a similar hibernating animal was chosen.That's why today Phil is hoisted aloft by one of the top-hatted Inner Circle members as his prediction is proclaimed.Phil's handler better have been working out.The game commission said weights of adult woodchucks vary from 5 to 10 pounds, with extremely large animals as heavy as 12 to 15 pounds.The weight of an individual animal fluctuates in a cyclic fashion throughout the year, with the animal at its heaviest by summer's end.Groundhogs don't generally have to move far to find food, as they eat a wide variety of vegetation — including green grasses, weed shoots, clover, alfalfa, corn in the milk stage, dandelion greens, garden vegetables such as beans, peas and carrots and, in the fall, apples and pears.These feeding habits often get them in trouble with farmers and gardeners, as does the woodchuck's burrowing tendencies.“Woodchucks dig burrows that can be dangerous to livestock and farm machinery,” said Wills.It's because of this, he noted, that woodchucks can be hunted pretty much year round except for the two weeks of firearms deer season after Thanksgiving.Wills said woodchucks can be legally shot anytime of the year if they are damaging property. There is no bag limit on woodchucks, but hunters must possess a valid Pennsylvania hunting license.Wills added, “I don't know if they are excellent table fare, but they can be eaten. It tastes similar to beef roast. It needs to be roasted in the oven or cooked in a crockpot, but it is edible.”That attitude would horrify the members of the Inner Circle.Phil has put Punxsutawney on the map since the first Groundhog Day hoopla was organized by local community members in 1886.The following year brought the first official trek to Gobbler's Knob. Each year since has seen a steady increase in participation of the celebration from people all over the world.This year with Groundhog Day falling on a Saturday, Phil and his shadow, Donald said, are at the center of “a whole weekend of celebrations.”Whatever faith their German ancestors put in a groundhog's shadow, today's Inner Circle repeats the legend with its tongue in cheek.And that's fine with Slippery Rock's Ruppert.He said, “I think at one point they took it more seriously to note the changing weather.“Now it's almost a kind of way to build community identity with certain rituals. Animals become emblematic with a community, almost like sports mascots,” said Ruppert.
