LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — There are not many groundhogs that make weather predictions with 100% accuracy, but one of them lives in Lancaster County. This special groundhog's name is Poppy.
At just 10 months old, Poppy made her first weather-prediction ever, she picked a Super Bowl winner, and she starred in a Super Bowl commercial with none other than Bill Murray. This commercial was later nominated for an Emmy.
2020 Was a big year for Poppy, the Emmy-Nominated Groundhog. However, life wasn’t always great for Poppy, she had a rough start.
Poppy's handler, Betsy Shank says, “She’s from Conestoga so she’s local. A gentleman found her walking around in his driveway and her eyes were still closed and he realized pretty quickly that this isn’t right and mom's not around anymore, and he brought her into rehab.”
Poppy had what's called malocclusion of the teeth. This means that her teeth were not positioned correctly, and as a result her teeth didn’t grind down as they should.
Shank explains, “We had three options: euthanize her, anesthetize her every week to cut her teeth down, or remove her teeth altogether.”
There was only one option that made sense for Poppy.
“Since she had already bonded to me and was showing some promising signs of being an ambassador, we opted to remove the incisors," Shank says.
Nowadays, Poppy lives indoors with her owner Betsy and keeps herself busy by making predictions, and serving as an ambassador for wildlife education.
Her latest prediction will not make snow lovers happy. Poppy predicts that we will see an early spring!
Poppy is also hosting her first-ever scavenger hunt to help drum up local business.
“With COVID, the businesses downtown really suffered. And being Groundhog Day, and having a groundhog and a well-known groundhog, we decided let’s help our downtown businesses," Shank says.
Each shop has a Poppy themed item that people can buy. From now through Saturday, February 6th, with each purchase of a Poppy-esque item, you will get a voucher.
On Sunday, Poppy will hop on Facebook live and draw a voucher and that person will win a special Groundhog basket!
Plus, Poppy will be doing Poppy pop-ups at the businesses all week, so you may even get a chance to see her in person!
For more information on Poppy click here.