BY CHRIS LAWRENCE
About 200 folks looked on Friday under cloudy and overcast skies at the West Virginia Wildlife Center.
All eyes were on a brown box on stage held within a chain-link pen. The winter burrow of French Creek Freddie is what everybody had come to see as Wildlife Center Manager Trevor Moore coaxed the drowsy critter from his lair.
“I don’t see any shadow, looks like early spring,” said Moore as he and Freddie took a look around.
The ceremony, which is a 47-year tradition, almost didn’t happen in 2024. The zoological facility in Upshur County is undergoing a re-licensure process and for the moment is shut down. There is a snag over the issue of a secondary containment fence. Since 2000, the operation has been given a waiver by the federal inspectors, which has negated the need for that secondary containment, until this year. The old license expired at the end of 2023 and without it, the facility is not authorized to have guests.
However, a conversation about the importance of the Groundhog Day ceremony prompted an agreement with the USDA to allow for a one-day reprieve.
“We just had people who were a little misguided and we had to motivate them a little bit with the USDA to have this day,” said Gov. Jim Justice, who spoke via the internet from a school in Greenbrier County where he was on hand to deliver an SBA grant.
Earlier in the week it appeared the ceremony wouldn’t happen at all because of the license dispute. Justice was furious about the prospect and was still bothered by the ordeal Friday even though the plans had been allowed to unfold.
“In 24 years, we’ve had a waiver to be open. Why now? It’s an over reach of the federal government that’s basically infringing on the great people of West Virginia,” said the governor. “Really and truly, if we can have this day, why isn’t our wildlife center going to be able to continue to be open all the time? We’ve never had an incident whatsoever.”
The secondary fence is a security requirement for the safety of visitors and the animals in the pens.
Freddie is not West Virginia’s only groundhog celebrated Feb. 2. On the campus of Concord University in Athens, there is the celebration of Concord Charlie. Just like Freddie, Charlie saw no shadow on Friday and also predicted an early spring.
And to the north, Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil made it a trifecta — also predicting an early spring.
