Mammalian Daily live coverage of The Park’s 2014 Groundhog Day celebrations: the tweets above show how the controversy over the prognostication began

Of all the things the chief organizer of The Park’s Groundhog Day celebrations has had to worry about over his decade-long career, the validity of the official prognostication has never been one of them. Until now.

“I’m in a state of shock,” said Wyatt Whistlepig, Jr. in a telephone interview this morning.

Roused just before dawn to attend the ceremonies, Whistlepig had every intention of returning to his burrow in the afternoon, as he has done every year. Instead, because of the shadow controversy, he has been awake for three days now.

“If this doesn’t constitute premature awakening, I don’t know what does,” he says. But he’s not complaining:

“Dealing with this and anything else that comes up, that’s just part of my job. And it’s a job I love.”

The controversy began just seconds after Solange Marmotte, 2014 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring (POPS), declared that The Park could expect another six weeks of Winter because she had seen her shadow. A group of disgruntled spectators claimed the shadow that Marmotte had seen was not her own, but one that appeared as a result of a fault in the Prognostication Pad.

Immediately, the organizers brought in experts to rule on the matter. Executives from Simply Structures, the firm that designed and built the Prognostication Pad, checked the structure for faults while artists from the Hani Gajah School of Art traced the shadow. Eventually a team of shadow experts ruled that, given the paw and claw that appeared on the artists’ tracings, the shadow must indeed have been Marmotte’s. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Justice Augustus Dindon signed the Official POPS’ Proclamation.

“At that point, I thought it was over,” said Whistlepig this morning. “We moved on to the other events and I didn’t give it another thought.”

Little did he know, though, as attendees listened to the Archons’ Address and partook of the tasty treats at the food stations, that the disgruntled group of spectators were planning to become litigants in a lawsuit that, in Whistlepig’s words, “is bound to tear The Park apart.”

That lawsuit alleges that the POPS did not in fact see her shadow on Groundhog Day and that, consequently, her prediction should be declared null and void. The suit was filed yesterday, February 3, at noon.

For his part, Whistlepig thinks the whole matter is a sad and, ultimately, silly one.

“To me, it’s a moot point. By the time the suit gets through our court system, Spring will have arrived, whether Marmotte saw her own shadow or not. All they’ve done [in launching the suit] is brought shame on the POPS, shame on the celebrations, and shame on the shadow. It’s a rain of shame, and for what?” he said, sighing.

We may be ten days away from the POPS prediction and related celebrations, but this year’s Groundhog Day program is already proving to be controversial.

The decision made by the 2013 Archons to substitute a “musical interlude” for the Park Historical Society’s Tribute to Zoocracy has sparked some heated discussion, particularly on talk radio stations.

Yesterday morning, Park Historical Society President Clark Cascanueces admitted he was “blindsided” by the exclusion of his organization’s short film on zoocracy. He and University of West Terrier history professor Beatrice Zilonis were guests of talk show host Yannis Tavros on Toro Talk Radio.

“I was gobsmacked, truly,” Zilonis said. They went on to characterize the 2013 Archons as “the most ignorant, anti-education group of Animals” they had ever seen.

While Cascanueces and Zilonis are not alone in their opinions, many in The Park support the Archons’ decision. Citing Hieronymous Hedgehog’s criticism of the film last year as “a touch Human,” Mammalian Daily advice columnist and UWT adjunct professor of Human Studies reiterated her opinion of the tribute on a Canine Communications Radio (CCR) call-in show.

“There is something almost Human about our celebrating ourselves,” she said.

“It’s not the Animal way. I think we’ve imbibed this sort of ‘Rah Rah’ attitude from the Humans around us and I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. In any case, I don’t think it’s quite appropriate for Groundhog Day and I’m behind the Archons on this. I think their decision to remove it from the program was a sound one,” she said.

The recent Arctic-like temperatures that The Park has experienced may end up causing stress for our 2014 POPS, experts say.

The Arctic-like temperatures that have overtaken The Park over the past few weeks may end up adding stress to the job of our 2014 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring (POPS), says at least one expert in the field.

Speaking with talk show host Yannis Tavros on Toro Talk Radio, Park psychotherapist Dr. Gudrun L. Gibbon said she believed that come Groundhog Day, 2014 POPS Solange Graciela Marmotte will be under a lot of pressure to predict an early Spring.

“She will want to be the bearer of good news but if, indeed, she does see her shadow, she must tell us so. That will be a very difficult thing for her to do and I have no doubt she will find that conflict extremely stressful,” Gibbon said.

Gibbon, who is in private practice but is also on staff at The Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic, said she believes that even though Marmotte is in hibernation, she is aware of the difficult Winter we are having.

“I think, subconsciously, she may even be struggling with a form of ‘hibernators’ guilt’ and be feeling a high degree of tension due to the sympathy she is feeling for her non-hibernating compatriots. I think our POPS is in a very difficult position this year,” Gibbon said.

The PEO announced today that Solange Graciela Marmotte, seen here last year at the Anixi Agrarian Jubilee, has been elected 2014 POPS.

The Park’s hibernating community will breathe a collective sigh of relief today.

Less than a full day before this year’s new official date of hibernation, the Park Election Office finally has been able to declare a winner in the 2014 POPS election.

PEO head Gerritt Wezel made the announcement this morning at a hastily-arranged but well-attended press conference.

“The Animal who will fulfill the rôle of 2014 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring is Solange Graciela Marmotte,” he said.

Reading from a prepared statement, Wezel thanked Park citizens for their patience and commended his staff and all the volunteers who joined the recount effort.

“Without your help, I would still be counting votes and Park citizens would have lost all confidence in this process,” he said.

As it is, many Park citizens have expressed their disillusionment with the POPS selection process after this year’s fiasco. Nevertheless, many seem willing to let bygones be bygones and to move forward with their plans for hibernation.

“This is definitely something we will have to revisit come Spring,” said Killeen Echidna, president of The Monotreme Alliance. Echidna spoke on Toro Talk Radio as part of a discussion forum on the subject after the election announcement was made.

“In the meantime, we’re grateful to have had a bit more time to prepare for hibernation. Now, we’ll all be glad to go under and Solange [Marmotte] has our full confidence. She will do a great job as POPS in February,” she said.

The Park Election Office has put out a call for volunteers to expedite the recount of votes from the 2014 POPS election

The Park Election Office has sent out an urgent call for volunteers to aid in the tallying of votes cast in the 2014 POPS election, which was held on November 7.

A public service announcement recruiting volunteers was read on all Park radio and television stations this morning and a written notice appeared in the morning editions of all Park newspapers. In addition, PEO head Gerritt Wezel appeared on several television shows, both news and talk, to encourage Animals to come to the PEO’s aid.

“We are asking Park citizens to give up an hour or two of their time to come to the aid of zoocracy,” said Wezel on PBCTV (Park Broadcasting Corporation Television) this morning.

“It is precisely because of the success of zoocracy that we have found ourselves in this situation. As more and more Park Animals become active participants in the zoocratic process, we find ourselves requiring more and more Animalpower to cope.”

Wezel also sought to dispel the myth that the problems associated with this year’s election count were some indication of a problem with the political process.

“This [problem of counting the votes] is not a bad thing at all. It is, in fact, a measure of the success of Animal self-rule. This year, we had a 500 per cent increase in the number of candidates and a corresponding increase in the number of Animals who voted. By any measure, I would call that success,” he said.