(TNS) — Last year, a volunteer with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered to live for a year where Punxsutawney Phil does and wear a costume on Feb. 2 to forecast the weather.
Pennsylvania’s most famous and beloved groundhog will emerge from his den next Friday, Feb. 2, Groundhog Day. If he sees his shadow, we will have six more weeks of winter. If not, we will have an early spring.
The animal-rights group has argued for years that using a live groundhog to predict the weather is inhumane.
This year, the group wrote a letter to Tom Dunkel, president of The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle, to retire Phil and his companion, Phyllis, to a sanctuary and instead use a giant coin.
“He is not a meteorologist and deserves better than to be exploited every year for tourism money,” PETA wrote. “Should kindness prevail, the huge coin could easily replace him as the Pennsylvania town’s gimmick to draw in tourists.”
PETA said it mailed members of the Inner Circle some “Round Tuit” coins.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a groundhog’s weather prediction is no more accurate than flipping a coin,” PETA said.
Last year, PETA offered to have a woman from Portland, Ore., to take Phil’s place and live as he does at the town library, “livestream her monotonous life all year long, and give an equally unscientific weather forecast on February 2, even wearing a groundhog costume if that’s what the club wants.”
PETA also in the past has offered to provide a telescope and moon chart or a persimmon tree to predict the weather.
Every year on Feb. 2, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club hosts a Groundhog Day celebration at Gobbler’s Knob, 548 Woodland Avenue, in Punxsutawney. Phil makes his prediction around 7:20 a.m. each year.
The event attracts a large crowd of visitors as early as 3 a.m. Shuttle buses are used to move visitors to the site. There is food and music and other related events.
Last year, Phil was inducted into the Meteorologist Hall of Fame by the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center. He was the “final and most famous” inductee.
Last year, Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.
