Shubenacadee Sam of Nova Scotia sees her shadow and predicts another six weeks of winter.
Groundhogs came out of their burrows to make their annual forecast just after 8am on Thursday at Shubenacuddy Wildlife Park in Shubenacuddy, New South Wales.
“Don’t put your hats and mittens away just yet,” Sam said on Twitter after her prediction.
Sam saw his shadow last year too.
Legend has it that if Sam hadn’t seen his shadow, early spring would have waited.
“Some say there was a tradition of observing badgers and other wildlife that dates back to 16th-century Germany,” says Dr. Andrew Morrison, curator and veterinarian at Shubenacadee Wildlife Park, following Sam’s predictions. I’m talking. “We just observe what happens in nature and learn a few things from it.”
Shubenakadi Sam danced and shivered in the frigid Thursday temperatures before joining a much larger groundhog mascot before the real Sam emerged from the house.
Sam slowly walked out of the den door and rushed to about 50 park visitors watching by a nearby fence. Morrison estimates that the crowd would have been larger had it not been for the frigid temperatures.
This year’s event was the first in-person prediction of Groundhog Day at the park since 2019.
Sam’s prediction was confirmed within seconds and she returned to her den for rest and reward.
“She goes back to bed. Morrison adds that it’s a ‘little procedure’ to get Sam ready for Groundhog Day.”
“[She]has to be warm…she has to be up and out to make sure she’s had a really good breakfast, stretch and then pop.”
Groundhogs typically hibernate during this time.
“This is the time when they start waking up from hibernation and go out and look around and see what the weather is like,” says Morrison.
“If the weather is nice, they will go outside and start looking for food.
Sam is the first groundhog in North America to make a prediction, about an hour ahead of other groundhogs in Ontario and the eastern United States.
