Vegan 'Weather Reveal' Cake Should Replace Punxsutawney Phil: PETA

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA — With Groundhog Day fast approaching, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is making its annual plea to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club to retire Punxsutawney Phil. This year, PETA wants to replace America's most famous weather prognosticating rodent with a baked good.

PETA has sent a letter to the groundhog club offering to deliver a "weather reveal" vegan cake to Gobbler's Knob every year on Groundhog Day if Phil and his family are delivered to a reputable sanctuary. In a play on baby gender reveal videos the cake would be cut to expose one of two colors - blue indicating six more weeks of winter or pink signifying an early spring.

"You batter believe that for Phil, Groundhog Day is no piece of cake," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in the letter to club president Tom Dunkel.

"Groundhogs are shy prey animals who, when allowed, actively avoid humans. Yet, year after year, Phil is transported to Gobler’s Knob,whisked on stage, and subjected to a noisy announcer, screaming crowds, and flashing lights against all his natural instincts. If approached in his natural habitat, he would run away in fear, not volunteer to live year-round in captivity, unable to do anything that’s natural and important to him like hibernate or burrow—just to be a town’s once-a-year fake meteorologist."

Dunkel could not immediately be reached for comment. The groundhog club traditionally rebuffs PETA's overtures folklore for reasons outlined on its website.

"Groundhog Day is a legend that traverses centuries, its origins clouded in the mists of time with ethnic cultures and animals awakening on specific dates," the website states.

"Myths such as this tie our present to the distant past when nature did, indeed, influence our lives. It is the day that the groundhog comes out of his hole after a long winter sleep to look for his shadow.

"If he sees it, he regards it as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his hole. If the day is cloudy and, hence, shadowless, he takes it as a sign of spring and stays above ground."