MILWAUKEE — A year after a groundhog bit the former mayor of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in the ear, the current mayor will use a caged animal to predict the weather at the local Groundhog Day celebration in the town that bills itself as “The Groundhog Capital of the World.”
Mayor Paul Esser said the Madison suburb will also have a person in a groundhog costume on hand to make Sun Prairie’s annual celebration on Tuesday safer and more humane.
Eventually, he wants to do away with using a live rodent altogether.
“It’s Groundhog Day; I get it,” said Esser, who was elected last April. “I think we could make a change into something that is more appropriate.”
Legend has it that if the groundhog sees his shadow at sunrise on Feb. 2, there will be six more weeks of winter, and if he does not, spring will come early.
Groundhog Day celebrations will be held on Tuesday across North America. The most well-known event is in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where thousands of revelers gather each year.
The new approach in Sun Prairie, which has a population of about 32,000 people and bills itself as the “The Groundhog Capital of the World,” comes a year after Jimmy the Groundhog bit former Mayor Jon Freund, who was uninjured. Jimmy escaped his cage after making his weather prediction, and was never seen again.
“It just underscores the whole dilemma with this thing,” Esser said. “There is an issue with how we treat this animal … he should be hibernating and not on display.”