First-time dad Punxsutawney Phil is "attentive and nurturing" to 2 growing babies
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (KDKA) -- Punxsutawney Phil's Inner Circle has an update on the first-time father's two babies.
According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle, the two pups are growing and getting a little bit of fur. "Phil and Phyllis are being the best parents, so attentive and nurturing," the Inner Circle wrote on Facebook.
The family of four is snuggling and bonding in the zoo in downtown Punxsutawney, where Phil lives when he's not making predictions about the weather.
Phil and his "wife" Phyllis welcomed the little bundles of joy at the end of last month. Tom Dunkel, the president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle, told KDKA-TV that no one even knew Phyllis was pregnant. They found the babies when someone went to feed the groundhogs.
Dunkel said they've never had a baby groundhog before, so it was a shock to the club, but they're "stoked." Dunkel said his cane allows him to speak Groundhogese, and when he talked to Phil after the births of his babies, Phil was "besides himself."
"He's 138 years old and never had a child so he picked late in life to start a family," Dunkel said.
The Inner Circle maintains there is only one Phil who has been predicting the weather for more than 130 years and that he stays young by drinking the "elixir of life" every summer, which tacks seven years onto his lifespan.
The groundhog babies don't have names yet, but once they do, Dunkel said Phil will let him know, then Dunkel will let the rest of us know.
According to legend, if Phil emerges from Gobbler's Knob on Feb. 2 and sees his shadow, we have six more weeks of winter, but if there is no shadow, we get an early spring. He didn't see his shadow this year.
As for whether the babies will end up in the family business, Dunkel says it doesn't work that way. There's one Santa Claus, one Easter Bunny and one Punxsutawney Phil.
