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In a tourist state like Colorado, it's rather surprising that few, if any, of our towns had capitalized on Groundhog Day, which was celebrated yesterday with the usual national publicity in Punxsutawney, Pa.
We have groundhogs in Colorado; they're our
second-largest rodent after the beaver. We usually call
them by their proper name, marmots,
although
sometimes they're rockchucks
or whistle pigs.
Technically, they are ground-dwelling squirrels, and there
are eight species spread through the Northern Hemisphere,
from the Himalayas to New Mexico.
Ours is Marmota flaviventris,
or
yellow-bellied marmot.
If you've ever climbed a
14er, you've probably seen them. They live in talus above
8,000 feet, and they're clever beggars. They know that the
first thing you're likely to do, once you've caught your
breath, is sit down, open your pack, and get something to
eat. As soon as your trail food is in hand, the marmots
appear, standing on their hind legs and begging. Since
they're cute furry critters, you feed them.
Some purist will doubtless point out that human food is
not good for marmots, and further, that such feeding
corrupts the natural ways of marmots so that they will
forget how to forage for succulent alpine forbs, and
instead just follow hikers around. They could become
problem marmots,
although the problem would be
seasonal. Our marmots spend most of the year -- roughly
October through May -- in hibernation.
Search as I might through Colorado lore, I have found
only a few instances of problem marmots.
One happened in the late summer of 1903 when Otto Mears was extending a narrow-gauge railroad line north of Silverton. A long rock fill had to be completed before the winter snows arrived. The construction foreman wanted to hire more men, and found 125 prospective laborers among the Navajo.
As one railroad history recounts, The Indians were
not very diligent laborers, much preferring to drop
everything to enjoy the fun and excitement of chasing the
numerous marmots playing along the grade.
Mears decided to remove the distractions. He hired some
local boys, gave each a .22 rifle, and instructed them to
get rid of the pesky little marmots.
And so the line
was completed on time.
According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, it is still legal to hunt marmots. You need a small-game license; the season runs from Aug. 10 to Oct. 15, with a daily limit of two.
Marmot fur is a popular trim in some places, so I
suspected that was why people hunted them, but the leave
my name out of the paper
DOW employee I talked to
(they're still not sure whether they're allowed to talk to
the media without clearance from on high) said that
Colorado hunters are supposed to eat what they kill,
although she, like me, had never encountered anyone who had
eaten a marmot.
I've read that the mountain men considered them good
eating,
she said, but they ate skunk and mule, too,
so I don't think that's much of a recommendation.
Just how the marmot family got connected with what
the weather will be like for the rest of the winter
is
one of those mysteries of folklore. Feb. 2 was a Catholic
feast, Candlemas, so people in northern Europe were used to
celebrating then, and cloudy weather on Candlemas was seen
as a harbinger of spring.
That somehow got mixed with a German proverb about a hibernating animal emerging and looking for its shadow -- except it was about a bear, rather than a rodent. The current tradition probably came to America with the Pennsylvania Dutch.
One Colorado town is catching on, although its
celebration isn't on Groundhog Day. Whistle Pig Days
will run Feb. 13-15 in Creede. Chamber of commerce manager
Pat Richmond said Creede had once held several mid-winter
events like Cabin Fever Days,
but they faded away
when we had those years without snow.
This year, We thought about holding something like a
Groundhog Day on the closest weekend,
but then they
decided to put many winter events together for a long
holiday weekend.
So Creede will be celebrating with a parade, a
snow-sculpture contest, a barbecue and a dance, among other
things. The schedule calls for a marmot, Willow Creek
Willie,
to emerge and look for his shadow.
At 8,852 feet in a narrow canyon, winter will certainly linger, whether Willie sees a shadow or not.
That's the most curious thing about Groundhog Day. Spring doesn't come in Pennsylvania or Colorado in February. So perhaps it's time to revise this tradition. If Willie sees his shadow, we'll have two more months of freezing cold; if he doesn't, we'll have two months of frosty muck. Either way, Willie and his friends will hibernate into May, which proves that marmots are smarter than they look.
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