A prophetic groundhog predicts the weather conditions of the United States and is trusted by thousands of conscious humans. This winter, on Feb. 2, 2025, Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog in question, declared we have six more weeks of winter.
Groundhog Day is an ancient tradition, surrounding the emergence of this animal from hibernation. The story is that if the chosen groundhog sees his shadow, he will go back into hibernation, thus declaring six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, it means that there will be an early spring. According to the Library of Congress, holidays that marked the changing of seasons were very important to pre-Christianity Celtic societies, and the traditions spread throughout Europe. These practices and rituals surrounding season changes were so embedded in European culture that even when the new church came, they failed to snuff it out and eventually “baptized” the holiday into Christianity. The relation of the groundhog to this celebration comes from European, specifically German and Dutch cultures that migrated to the U.S. during the eighteenth century. Pennsylvania Dutch people primarily brought these beliefs over, during the highest points of immigration. The groundhog was always a symbol of community, and they developed “Groundhog Lodges” to maintain Pennsylvania Dutch culture. These lodges were the setting for meetings called versammlinge, in which participants only spoke their native tongue. Every year, Groundhog Day most famously takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and goes all the way back to 1887. This is also where the famous groundhog got his namesake from.
The Punxsutawney Phil that we have now is apparently the same Phil from the original ceremonies, making him 139 years old. This was his first winter as a father, as he and his wife, Phyllis, gave birth to two babies: Sunny and Shadow, who live with him in Gobbler’s Knob. CBS News states that the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club makes a trip out to Phil’s stump every summer to give him their “elixir of life,” however they cannot reveal the secret recipe.
This concept is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Scientifically, groundhogs only live about 14 years. Trying to convince millions that a group of people dressed like pilgrims, who trust a rodent with the weather, can keep said rodent alive for over 100 years hovers around the lowest pits of basic human intelligence. Not only that, but the implications of keeping the same groundhog captive for 139 years worth of celebrations, and even breeding him, show that this animal is not being given the adequate living conditions that it deserves. That would mean that Phil has been raised in captivity and has never actually known true freedom, and likely never will. I can’t even imagine how everyone would react if society randomly decided to lock up a meteorologist and bring them into light only once a year, and claim that this meteorologist would live forever just because we want to rely on some otherworldly being for the weather. Not just that, but breeding that human with another, naming their partner to match them, and even going as far as to name their children after the thing that is keeping them captive in the first place would be absurd. With modern technology, keeping a living thing captive for the weather is purely for human pleasure and should be abolished as soon as possible.
You might say that this is simply a beloved holiday, and even wonder what could replace this reliance on a groundhog’s weather prediction. I have an answer for you: there is no reason to replace it with anything. Though, some solutions have been proposed, according to Yahoo! News, by the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They have recently proposed a “vegan weather reveal cake” to replace the use of Phil. This cake would function similarly to a gender reveal cake, blue being six more weeks of winter, and pink meaning an early spring. PETA was prepared to fund this and produce a cake every year to maintain the tradition.
The “need” for prediction is not a need, it is a comfortable tradition. The holiday has shown its resilience to change throughout history, however the beliefs that surround it have aged into a large sum of fully-grown adults celebrating a groundhog once a year. Frankly, it’s embarrassing that it has lasted this long, and that there is still a Punxsutawney Groundhog Club that continues this. Furthermore, according to CNN, Phil has only been right about 35% of the time since 2005. There is no true point behind this holiday, and we have access to the weather every day of the year. The celebration is at the equivalent reasoning of a child playing dress-up with their imaginary friend.
There is no accuracy, necessity, or substantial reason woven into Groundhog Day. It is simply thousands of fully conscious people gathering to worship a rodent, and keeping him in captivity for his entire “immortal” life. I say we terminate the holiday, start to embrace the technology we have here in the twenty-first century, and start disregarding the people still stuck in folklore.
