FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 4, 2004
CHUCK BACKS CHUCK: SCHUMER SHOWS SI ZOO'S GROUNDHOG BEATS
"WORLD FAMOUS" PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL 6 OUT OF EVERY 10 YEARS
Statistics don't lie: Staten Island Chuck predicts end of winter
right about 90% of the time while Punxsutawney Phil gets it right
only about 30% of the time
Schumer: SI could see millions of dollars in tourism revenue
if Punxsutawney Phil did the honorable thing and ceded groundhog
crown to Staten Island Chuck
After a week of warm weather and spring showers throughout the
Northeast, US Senator Chuck Schumer today declared that the war
of the competing Groundhog Day groundhogs is over, because the Staten
Island groundhog has beaten his better-known Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
cousin in a landslide. Armed with data showing Staten Island Chuck's
vastly superior record predicting the end of winter, Schumer today
wrote to the Mayor of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, asking him to relinquish
his town's groundhog crown to the borough of Staten Island and to
Staten Island Chuck.
"This isn't about whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his own shadow
anymore, it's about whether he should be overshadowed by Staten
Island's clearly superior groundhog," Schumer wrote today in
a letter to the Mayor of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. "It's like
baseball – the statistics don't lie, and the bottom line is
that Punxsutawney Phil out-predicts Staten Island Chuck about as
often as the Pirates beat the Yankees in the World Series."
Year after year, a groundhog named Phil comes out of his hole in
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – about 80 miles from Pittsburgh
– and, in the spotlight glare of the national media, predicts
whether or not there will be another six weeks of winter. Usually
he is wrong. This year, the Pennsylvania groundhog saw his shadow
and predicted another 6 weeks of winter, just 3 weeks before spring
sprung in the northeast.
Schumer noted that not only has it been warm in New York all week
with temperatures hitting the mid-60s with occasional spring showers,
it has also been warm with spring showers in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania,
with a high of 62.
Punxsutawney Phil's accuracy ratings vary from source to source,
but experts agree he gets it right about 3 of every 10 years. In
a 2003 profile, the Chicago Tribune found Punxsutawney Phil is correct
39 percent of the time. In 2002, the Raleigh News and Observer placed
the success rate at 25% and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said it
was 36%. And according to the book Extraordinary Origins of Everyday
Things, Phil's accuracy observed over a 60-year period is a disappointing
28 percent.
In contrast, data from the Staten Island Zoo, where Staten Island
Chuck lives, show that his predictions are correct 87% of the time
– and obviously he was right again this year. With Staten
Island Chuck predicting correctly approximately 9 out of 10 years
and Punxsutawney Phil only getting it right 3 out of 10 years, the
majority of the time – 6 out of 10 years – Chuck is
right and Phil is wrong.
While Schumer admitted that his letter
to Punxsutawney Mayor James Wehrle was meant as a light-hearted
jibe, Groundhog Day is big business for the town with the nation's
lead groundhog. As seen in the Bill Murray move "Groundhog
Day," hundreds of tourists and members of the media visit the
area for February 2, pumping millions of dollars into the local
economy.
"If he can't read his shadow right, it's time for Punxsutawney
Phil to read the writing on the wall and pass the torch –
and the spotlight – to Staten Island Chuck," Schumer
said.
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