Latest news with #TomDunkel
CBS News
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Punxsutawney Phil's family is getting another home
Punxsutawney Phil's family is getting some new digs. Phil and his "wife" Phyllis live at his burrow in the Punxsutawney Memorial Library, but now with two kids, Sunny and Shadow, it's getting a little crowded. Visitors to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, will still get to visit the groundhogs in the library. But in about a month, people will also get to see them at a new zoo at Gobbler's Knob, CBS affiliate WTAJ reported. The TV station said a designer from Pittsburgh was brought in to help with the project, adding details to the new home like the proclamation scroll and the elixir of life, which legend says helps Phil, who is allegedly over 100 years old, stay immortal. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club plans to move Sunny and Shadow first, but all the groundhogs will have the opportunity to travel back and forth. And club president Tom Dunkel says the family won't be separated. "We have a tunnel that's like an infinity tunnel that lets Phil and Phyllis and Sunny and Shadow move back and forth between this zoo and the downtown zoo," Dunkel told WTAJ. Since 1986, men clad in tuxedos and top hats have been hoisting a groundhog into the air in an attempt to predict whether spring will come early. If Phil sees his shadow, he takes it as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather. If he doesn't see his shadow, it means there will be an early spring. Phil became a first-time father at 138 years old last spring. However, Sunny and Shadow won't be taking up the family business. The Groundhog Club maintains that there is one Punxsutawney Phil, just like there's one Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
PETA issues swap deal: Punxsutawney Phil for a vegan cake
(NewsNation) — PETA is urging Punxsutawney Groundhog Club to remove Punxsutawney Phil from his Groundhog Day duties. The animal activist organization doesn't plan on leaving the club empty-handed, offering a 'weather-reveal' vegan cake in his place. In a letter to club president Tom Dunkel, PETA offered the cake in exchange for placing Phil and his family in an animal sanctuary. 525-pound bear found hiding under evacuated Southern California home How could the cake tell the weather, you may ask? Well, according to PETA, the dessert would have one of two colors: blue or pink. Should blue be on the inside of the cake, it would signify an extra six weeks of winter. If it were pink, an early start to spring would be on the horizon. 'When allowed to be themselves, groundhogs avoid humans, create intricate networks of underground burrows, communicate with one another, and even climb trees, but poor Phil is denied all of that for a tired old gimmick,' PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in the release. Despite PETA's opposition, the Groundhog Day tradition dates back to 1887, and thousands flock to the central Pennsylvania borough to celebrate. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
