Animal rights group: Replace Punxsutawney Phil with robot
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — An animal rights group wants organizers of Pennsylvania’s Groundhog Day festival to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robotic stand-in.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it’s unfair to keep the animal in captivity and subject him to the huge crowds and bright lights that accompany tens of thousands of revelers each Feb. 2 in Punxsutawney, a tiny borough about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. PETA is suggesting the use of an animatronic model.
But William Deeley, president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, says the animal is “being treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania.” The groundhog is kept in a climate-controlled environment and is inspected annually by the state Department of Agriculture.
Mr. Deeley says PETA isn’t interested in Phil from Feb. 2 on, and is looking for publicity.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10027/1031375-100.stm?cmpid=MOSTEMAILEDBOX#ixzz0dy2kX0rW
Here’s the issue from PETA on their blog, plus the letter they sent to the Groundhog’s handlers here
Excerpt:
“The popularity of using technologically advanced electromechanical devices such as animatronic animals instead of live animals is rising. Performances such as “Walking With Dinosaurs, the Live Experience”—a theatrical show in which animatronic dinosaurs roar, stomp, and chase each other around an arena—have been taking audiences by storm. Other popular exhibitions have featured robotic penguins and dolphins who swim and communicate just like real animals do, and we think that an animatronic groundhog would similarly mesmerize a crowd full of curious spectators in Punxsutawney.”
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Well, I can see this coming. Punxsutawney has told PETA to bugger off, and now PETA will show up next Tuesday and make some sort of idiotic protest to get news media attention.
In other news, I hear Phil Jones may soon be available. If he saw his shadow it would be six more months of avoiding FOI requests.
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In Switzerland, people now have to consider the feelings of plants.
Considering the number of chemicals that plants produce to avoid being eaten, what are the veggies going to eat from now on?
That should be funny, a bunch of PETA yahoos protesting in the middle of a bunch of beer and gun clutching revelers! Good luck to em!
Likely Phil would last about two days in the wild before he got smashed by an 18 wheeler.
Being from PA and from a hunting family, there are no groundhog recipies because, frankly, why the hell would you want to eat a groundhog? The best thing groudhogs are good for is zeoring in your scope, the little buggers are really good at destroying farms and gardens. Although they are kinda cute and would probably make a nice warm hat.
Kay,
I am skeptical that Scandinavian bears are so stupid as to make a habit of emerging from hibernation at or near February 2. Scandinavia has a similar climate to the part of Canada where I live, and February 2 lies around the mid-point of winter. In norther Russia, bears emerge from hibernation in March. I stand by my earlier post: the date of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is dictated by the date of Christmas. Here’s why:
“Under Mosaic law as found in the Torah, a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for three and thirty days “in the blood of her purification.” Candlemas (the English term for this feast day) therefore corresponds to the day on which Mary, according to Jewish law, should have attended a ceremony of ritual purification (Leviticus 12:2-8). The Gospel of Luke 2:22–39 relates that Mary was purified according to the religious law, followed by Jesus’ presentation in the Jerusalem temple, and this explains the formal names given to the festival, as well as its falling 40 days after the Nativity.”
No doubt other pagan customs were mixed in, but I doubt that the Scandinavian honouring of emerging hibernating bears has anything to do with the date for Groundhog Day, an American tradition, on which I was commenting.
vigilantfish…
your argument might stand if christmas hadn’t been placed on top of the winter solstace to start with.
Oh, and lay off Bill Murray! Here in the UK, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have even heard of Groundhogs, groundhog day or Puxacatawny, PX. He was good in ghostbusters as well. Look at the way he dealt with the EPA 😉
Don’t take it all so cereally, guys. it’s not like its ManBearPig or anything!
Scaryoldcortina (15:19:56) :
I LOVE Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. It’s brilliant on several levels and Bill Murray has the best ‘resigned’ face in Hollywood. ( Caddyshack, however, which features other rodents, is dreadful – although it’s my brother-in-law’s favourite film – I gather there’s a sexual divide on this film).
I’m not really taking anything ‘cereally’ – just speculating on the origin of the tradition, which I suspect had to do more with some guys having a few too many drinks and coming up with a great joke. In Ontario we have ‘Wiarton Willy”, which by tradition is an albino groundhog. Often his and Punxsutawny Phil’s forecasts contradict each other. Amazing what a psychological let-down it is when Wiarton Willy sees his shadow, even though it does not make a speck of difference! Canadian winters can be very cold, but this year I think you’ve got us beat (us being southern Ontario).
I wonder if PETA would prefer the one we have down in Quarryville. It’s been stuffed and dressed in a tuxedo and tophat for decades now. I mean what is the official time of mourning for a dead groundhog?
Lol, I agree 😉 Caddyshack was awful, wasn’t it!
I have nothing further to add.. I probably agree with you anyway, speculation without consequence is a hobby of mine. Helps pass the time up here on the hills.
Take care, and thank you for not pouncing on my geographic gaffe of placing puxacahoweveryouspellit in texas (oops)
as a geographic curio however, within 50 miles of my house are settlements named New York, Philidelphia, Washington and Quebec. (but also No Place and Wide Open… go figure, that’s coal miners for you)
I’m not a PETA advocate, but I daresay keeping animals in tiny enclosures, branding them, and slaughtering them for food or sport is cruel by any stretch of the imagination. Just because you feel they didn’t suffer (much) doesn’t mean it isn’t cruel. That doesn’t mean I’m against hunting or ranching or cattle farming. They’re necessary things, especially in the case of wild animals with no natural predators left. But don’t pretend these things aren’t cruel to the animals.
Anton (21:42:27) : “Don’t tell me. You think YOU are the highest life-form in the Universe? Good luck with that.”
Actually, according to my wife, I’m not even the highest life-form in my own house, let alone the universe. WUWT?
Sound like the US ‘jail’ system (NEVER MIND the ROW).
How do you feel about that?
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BUT I’ll bet their intentions were second to none…
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No comparison. Criminals chose their paths by making extremely bad choices, but they had choices. The animals don’t have choices.
WARNING: GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF EAGLE SKILL AND CUNNING (IOW, animal on animal violence; avert your eyes oh sensitive ones!):
Golden Eagle Preying on Wolves to grown Deer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GoEalfyMqM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
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NOT the innocent ones … and we _know_ there are innocent ones …
Still going to dodge this one?
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Jeff Alberts (19:34:56),
First, I agree that the suffering of animals must be kept to a minimum. But I see the situation a little differently.
If it were not for breeding turkeys, for instance, to be used as food, those turkeys would not exist [and if they did exist, they would meet a much more cruel end, via ‘nature, red in tooth and claw.’].
I think [but I don’t know for sure] that the turkeys would vote for the life they have, vs no life at all.
So to be sure, animal cruelty must be avoided if at all possible. But not at all costs, which would mean no more turkey dinners. Better that the turkeys live in cages, gobbling at other turkeys all day, and anticipating their next meal, than no existence at all.
You know that’s not the same thing, Jim.
Are you hiding ‘proof’ to the contrary (because, in a situation like this the burden of proof is on you since you assert the proposition) ?
Otherwise, play the card, man …
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I agree, Smokey, but unfortunately you’re arguing something I didn’t posit. I just said that one can’t pretend that hunting, cattle ranching, etc isn’t cruel. I didn’t say those things shouldn’t exist.
My post was a response to someone else above who said they knew hunters, ranchers, etc, and none of them had ever been cruel to an animal. Well, unless you’re a terrible hunter, or a rancher without cattle (or cattle prods), then yes you have been cruel. I didn’t say this type of cruelty shouldn’t exist, just that people shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t. I don’t feel guilty when I grill a steak…
You didn’t specify innocent or guilty. You make it sound like the majority are innocent. What exactly am I dodging? We were originally talking about animals, then you changed the subject.
I’ll tell you two other things that amount to ‘cruel and unusual’ in the way of involuntary servitude (beyond which even animals are made to suffer IMO): Forced conscription and the process involved in so-called ‘income tax’ preparation and accompanying records disclosure re: business profit and losses, expenses, etc.
How do you plead here?
‘Liberty’ for animals but not for man?
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Wow, you’re all over the place, and going off-topic. Please show me where I said “liberty”.
Jeff Alberts (19:51:36),
Fair enough.
Re: Jeff Alberts (19:53:26) :
Life is like this Jeff, and the sooner you make this ‘mental adjustment’ life will contain much less turmoil and stress for you – there is a food chain and like other predators shown here, we are near the top of that chain:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VklTs-Tid_I&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
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So you’re just going to wave the issue away … fine by me if you don’t want (can’t?) view this on a little wider scale.
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