Groundhog Day? It’s Penguin Day in Milwaukee

Humboldt Penguins. Photo courtesy Milwaukee County Parks.

Winter turned bitterly cold in Milwaukee the past week, but with any luck, a flippered, flightless bird will soon alert the city to a fast-approaching spring.

Following the death of Gordy the Gopher, the Milwaukee County Zoo will rely on a Humboldt Penguin to gauge the coming of spring this year on Groundhog Day, which in Milwaukee should be known as Penguin Day. Per tradition, on Feb. 2 one of the Zoo’s penguins will “waddle into the spotlight,” as the Zoo said, and by its shadow, predict whether spring arrives in six weeks or sooner.

Spheniscus humboldti is a medium-sized penguin native to the coasts of Chile and Peru. It is the latest species to take the mantle of ceremonial weather prediction. And while the Humboldt Penguin does not hibernate like the animals that came before it, it does burrow to make its nest.

The groundhog, or woodchuck as it is sometimes called, also favors a burrow for its hibernation. So do badgers and bears, which exist in the lineage of animal weather predictions.

The beginning of February marks a middle point halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Celtic peoples in Europe commonly celebrated these days falling between a solstice and an equinox as important “seasonal turning points,” according to folklorist Don Yoder. At some point during the Middle Ages, people began to believe that the behavior of hibernating animals could predict the coming season.

Just as Groundhog Day is celebrated today, back then, if a badger or bear left their burrow on a sunny day and saw their shadow there would be six more weeks of winter. If they took a break from hibernation on a cloudy day, it portended a quicker arrival of spring weather.

Yoder traced the belief of groundhogs predicting the weather to German immigrants in 19th-century Pennsylvania. And now, in Milwaukee, the tradition is taking new shape; one that is sleek, reminiscent of a torpedo and conducive to zooming through frigid Pacific waters at speeds up to 30 miles per hour.

On Friday, Feb. 2, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Zoo Director Amos Morris will inaugurate the tradition of penguin prediction.