Episode published: Friday 01/19/2024
Michael: Hello and welcome to episode 4 of Every Day is Groundhog Day (Except for the Days When It's Not). I'm your host, Michael. I hope you all enjoyed learning about Sylvia, the Apex Armadillo last week. This week, we're back to groundhogs again.
Today, we're talking about Gertie the Groundhog. Gertie has been providing winter forecasts on February 2nd since 1993. Seemingly coincidentally, the same year that the movie Groundhog Day came out. Gertie resides at the Wildlife Prairie Park in Hanna City, Illinois. If Gertie sees her shadow on Groundhog Day, just like Punxsutawney Phil or Woodstock Willie, the other prominent groundhog from Illinois that we talked about a few episodes back, then that means there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, there will be an early spring. What follows here is an interview with Bryant Brumbill, one of Gertie's caretakers. Enjoy.
Michael: I am here today with Bryant Brumbill, he is one of Gertie the Groundhog's caretakers at Wildlife Prairie Park in Hanna City, Illinois. Gertie the Groundhog is a groundhog that has been providing a forecast on Groundhog Day since, I believe, the early '90s?
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, 1993 was the first year for us.
Michael: Welcome, Bryant. Thanks for joining me here today.
Bryant Brumbill: Thanks so much for having me.
Michael: Yes. So, I've been collecting information on groundhogs and Groundhog Day forecasters for the last couple of years and I learned about Gertie maybe two or three years ago, but Gertie actually has a pretty long history. You have some of the really old ones like Punxsutawney Phil but then you have a number of ones that started in the '80s or '90s. It looks like Gertie has provided predictions pretty much nonstop, maybe there was one year where I didn't have a forecast listed.
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, I think there was one year where she called out sick.
Michael: Okay, and do you know if that was because of snow or...?
Bryant Brumbill: I don't know. I've only been here at the park for a couple of years now, so that was quite a while before my time. But yeah, I'm looking at our little chart of success versus incorrect predictions from '93-2001 and it looks like she missed the one in 2003.
Michael: Yeah, maybe just start... Could you talk a little bit about Gertie and the ceremony and what all happens on Groundhog Day?
Bryant Brumbill: Sure, yeah. As you know, Groundhog Day is very serious business, kind of determines who is going to win the Super Bowl, how long the winter is going to last; a lot of responsibility to put on one rodent. [clip of the opening of Gertie the Groundhog's prognostication ceremony] We have been doing the whole Groundhog Day prediction thing, like we mentioned earlier, since the '90s.
Here at the park, we, of course, have Gertie our ambassador animal groundhog who is the one that does the whole prognostication thing. But we also have a variety of native animals, so our ambassador groundhog is one of the many animals in our zoo's collection. It's been a nice tradition here for a number of years. You may get to this later on in our questions also but one of the fun things about Gertie is that her success ratio is actually higher than Phil's, so we like to broadcast that every year as well. [laughs]
Michael: That's great. So, about that, does Gertie predict the weather, like, does she have a specific area that she's predicting? Is it for Illinois? For a specific region or is it nationwide?
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, so that's an interesting question, how do you decide whether or not you were right? If you have an early spring in one half of the country versus the other. I think we pretty much base our predictions based on what Gertie is seeing, so probably most applicable to the Midwest region over here. Yeah, I would say probably more localized.
Michael: You said that the tradition began in 1993. That also happens to be the year that the movie Groundhog Day came out. Do you know if there's any association with that? Is it just coincidence?
Bryant Brumbill: I think it was just coincidence. That fun fact was shared with me as well by the rest of our staff here, but I don't believe it was in response to the Groundhog Day movie that they started doing it, it was just a happenstance kind of thing.
Michael: I actually looked it up and was like, would the movie even have been out? It looks like it came out on February 12th so it certainly would have been in the news, people would have known it was coming.
Bryant Brumbill: Maybe groundhogs were just in vogue just then. [laughs]
Michael: So, Gertie has been predicting since 1993, that's a pretty long time. I have to assume that there have been multiple Gerties or has there only officially been one?
Bryant Brumbill: I know that some of the official groundhogs stick to their lore pretty heavily, that it's been the same one since the 1800s. We definitely have had multiple Gerties over the years. Groundhogs tend to live around 6 to about 14. So, it would be a pretty long-lived groundhog to be alive since '93. So yeah, there have been multiple ones over the years here.
Michael: I know the lore of Punxsutawney Phil is that he gets some sort of elixir every summer and it gives him seven more years of life. I didn't know if Gertie had something similar. So, there have been multiple. Does Gertie have another name or is it always Gertie? Whichever groundhog is going to be the predictor gets the name Gertie or is there, like, a second name?
Bryant Brumbill: I think there have been multiple groundhogs named Gertie. We currently have three; one that is Gertie and then two named Hansel and Gretel. Our thought is that they'll be Hansel Gertie, Gretel Gertie, and Gertie Gertie. More of like a last name kind of thing.
Michael: So, I'm sure it varies year to year, depending on what day of the week the holiday falls on, but what would you say, roughly how many people show up?
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, so it depends on the year, like you said. The first year that I did it was kind of coming off of COVID, so we were still trying to minimize the amount that people were coming out and being in each other's presence and stuff. So, that year we had the news and we kind of did it on Facebook Live so that people could watch it from home. There were a few people who showed up regardless, but that was a pretty small crowd that year. The following year, we had I'd say 30-40 people or so. But it's kind of a big community in the event in the past and so my first experience with it was post-COVID when everything was kind of diminished a little bit, but I expect we'll have a good number of people out.
Another thing that influences how many people come out is really the weather. We've had Groundhog Days in the past where it's been several inches of snow so it's kind of, like, the roads aren't super safe to get out there in the morning. But we definitely have some dedicated folks that come out every year.
Michael: When Gertie predicts a long winter, what kind of weather are we talking about? How cold are we talking or how warm are we possibly talking if it's an early spring?
Bryant Brumbill: What determines whether or not it's going to be six more weeks versus an early spring is, you know, of course, the shadow. So, it's really not so much the temperature, in terms of interpreting Gertie, as it is clouds. So, if it's sunny out then she will see her shadow and if it's not sunny out then she won't. So, the actual temperature is not as important in terms of her seeing it, if that makes sense.
Michael: Got ya. So, Wildlife Prairie Park is a zoo, right? So, how many animals would you say that you have there? I know you said you have three groundhogs right, in the possible prognosticating...
Bryant Brumbill: The prognosticator pool. [laughs] Yeah, we are a zoo. We're focused more on midwestern species, so we say we're a little bit tigers and penguins and a little bit more bobcats and salamanders; it's stuff that is native to the midwestern woods and habitats around here. So, groundhogs certainly fit within that kind of scope that we operate in. We have wolves, cougars, bears. Personally, I'm more on the reptiles and amphibians side of things so we've got all kinds of snakes and pond sliders and things. Overall, the total number of animals in the park, I'd have to check real quick, we also have bison and things. So, total number of species I would say is probably around 70-something, but total number of individuals is going to be a lot higher than that. But yes, we are a zoo, so our prognosticator is one of our zoo's collection animals.
Michael: And is it like, some of the animals, are they rescue animals or ones that can't be released into the wild? Or is there a mix?
Bryant Brumbill: There's a mix. It depends on the type of animal, really. Some things, really the only way you can have them is if they're not releasable. Many birds of prey, like, you don't own bald eagles ever, you're lended them from the conservation groups versus stuff like corn snakes or something like that that is bred in captivity in a common pen, we won't necessarily always get those from non-releasable rehab stories. But I would say it's a mix out here.
Michael: So, we talked a little bit about the ceremony and the crowds. What else is involved? I know that Gertie actually has her own theme song, right? Could you talk a little bit about that?
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah. So, Gertie has a theme song by a local artist.
Aside: So, I just wanted to hop in here real quick and note that the artist who sings “Wake Up Gertie” is named Barry Cloyd.
Bryant Brumbill: The Gertie song, "Wake Up Gertie” is kind of tradition here. He comes out every year to do that and it's kind of a sing-along thing where he does it the first time and then has everyone contribute after. [clip of Barry Cloyd singing, "Wake Up Gertie.”] I think that he was not able to come that first year I did this, during COVID. He was out last year to do his rendition, to hype the crowd a little bit I guess before the actual... She's lifted up out of her little contraption. We have a thing that raises up, a plexi box that's got her in it.
Michael: Yeah, I think I've seen that. Do you know if Gertie is hibernating currently?
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, that was kind of one of the things I was going to mention when you asked what else was involved. One of the things we as her animal keepers have to be thinking about is that before the Groundhog Day prediction, going into it, the natural history of these animals makes them slow down. They build up a lot of extra fat to make it through the wintertime and then go dormant for the most part. So, we have to be thinking about slowly acclimating her to waking up again if we're bringing her in ahead of her prognostication or be aware that she's not going to be super alert if we just bring her out while she's still knocked out. She's certainly not going to see her shadow if her eyes are closed. So typically, we kind of bring her in to start warming her up slowly, earlier than that, by a month or so. We don't want to put her through too much change in temperature all at once.
Michael: Right, that makes sense. So, does she live, is she outside? Is she in some sort of climate-controlled area?
Bryant Brumbill: So, typically during the wintertime, or during the whole year, she lives outside in her enclosure; she lives with a fox squirrel named Sandy. When we're bringing her in to start warming her up for that event, we bring her into a temperature-controlled inside area to kind of slowly start raising that up.
Michael: Are there any rivalries with any of the other prognosticators? I know some of them do have them.
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah. I don't know if rivalry is the right word, but we do kind of compare every year what we said versus was Phil said, of course, the most famous. So, I actually have the stats on it. Groundhog Day has been publicly celebrated since 1886 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and of course, Punxsutawney Phil. As we mentioned earlier in the recording, Wildlife Prairie Park has been doing it since 1993. So, Gertie has been around 65% correct during the time, since the early '90s, whereas Phil has been around 48% correct over that time. I know that Phil's record goes back further than that but during the time that Gertie has been predicting, she has actually had a higher success rate.
Michael: Wow, there you go. That's pretty impressive.
Bryant Brumbill: You've got to trust your local weathermen over your national ones, right?
Michael: Yeah, I guess that's true. There are a number of prognosticators in Illinois. Are you aware of Woodstock Willie? Is Woodstock, where is that in relation to you? Do you know?
Bryant Brumbill: I am not familiar with Woodstock Willie, so I think... Let me do a quick Google here.
Michael: So, Woodstock is the city where the movie was actually filmed so...
Bryant Brumbill: Interesting.
Michael: Yeah, so they do a pretty big celebration, so I was just wondering if there was any local...
Bryant Brumbill: Yeah, I'd be curious to know what our stats are compared to him.
Michael: Yeah, I guess we'll have to try and look into that.
Bryant Brumbill: There's got to be a graduate student project there somewhere, comparing the effectiveness of local versus national groundhog predictions.
Michael: Yeah, definitely something someone can work on.
So, I was starting to ask, so you have the live music, you have that song, “Wake Up Gertie,” right? Are there any other activities? Is there any food, hot chocolate? Anything like that?
Bryant Brumbill: We've had hot chocolate in the past. Another thing that we've done is promoting on our social media for people to align with either the Team Shadow or Team No Shadow, whether they want to see an early spring or not. And then we have also had groundhog-themed crafts and that kind of thing in the past. I was going to mention this, this isn't really a great data point on my part because it was incorrectly predicted last year but Gertie also does the Super Bowl prediction. So unfortunately, last year, she both predicted six more weeks of winter and an Eagles win which did not pan out. But yeah, I would say the Super Bowl prediction is another part of the Groundhog festivities here that we hadn't mentioned yet.
Michael: Right, yeah. I think you touched on that, and I was going to get back to that. does Groundhog Day always occur before the Super Bowl? Not always, right?
Bryant Brumbill: I'm not sure that it always does. You take the predictions when it presents itself, but it isn't always available. I'm not sure what her success rate is on that here. I've got to crunch those numbers.
Michael: That's pretty much everything I have. Is there anything else you wanted to mention that we haven't touched on?
Bryant Brumbill: You know, I'm not sure when you're planning on releasing this podcast but if it's before Groundhog Day this year, we will be livestreaming on our Facebook page, like usual. So, if you're interested in tuning in to see what our local groundhog has to say, we'll be here on that morning.
Michael: That is a good thing to know, I'll definitely check it out.
Bryant Brumbill: Well, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Michael: Thank you for talking to me.
Bryant Brumbill: Absolutely.
Michael: All right, thanks so much.
And that's the interview. Thanks again to Bryant Brumbill for taking the time to discuss Gertie with me. Over at CountdownToGroundhogDay.com, our art contest is still going on. We've got one entry as of this recording, we just need one more for it to be an actual contest. You can submit entries for the contest until January 23rd. A link to the contest is in the show notes. Our list of public Groundhog Day ceremonies for 2024 is now at over 40. Reminder that if you go to one of these events, we'd love to hear about it. A link to the list is in the show notes. That's it for today.
Music for the show was written by the astonishing Breakmaster Cylinder. Show artwork is by Tom Mike Hill. Transcripts are provided by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com. If you want to learn more about Groundhog Day, visit CountdownToGroundhogDay.com. Any feedback or voice messages can be sent to podcast@countdowntogroundhogday.com. Thanks for listening, talk to you next week!
--------
Transcribed by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com