Allan Brooks Nature Centre manager Cheryl Hood with Okanagan Okie, poses with Okanagan Okie prior to Groundhog Day.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Allan Brooks Nature Centre

The inaugural Groundhog Day weather prognostication from Okanagan Okie has predicted an early spring, but just as the meteorological skills of marmots aren't real, neither is Okanagan Okie.

"We're not about to dig up our property to go find a marmot that's hibernating," Allan Brooks Nature Centre manager Cheryl Hood told iNFOnews.ca today, Feb. 2, justifying why the nature centre used a stuffed toy and not a real marmot.

"We still think that (marmots) need to be in their natural habitat, not to be woken up and be grumpy in having to do this," Hood said. "Okanagan Okie is cute and fun and is just a way to engage people, and start talking about it and actually come up and see a real marmot and understand their place in our ecosystem."

So if Okanagan Okie isn't alive how did it predict an early spring?

"We did it by committee, we all looked at it, we all took a vote as an audience (to) see if we all saw his shadow," Hood said. "We did not see his shadow."

While some may have been a little miffed to learn that Okie wasn't real (when iNFOnews.ca originally wrote about the event we never thought to ask, is it real?) Hood says the event was fun and humorous and points out that Okie is an actual yellow-bellied marmot the type found in the Okanagan.

"Everyone's really loved the fact that we have done it, and if we've been asked we've always said it's not a real marmot," she said.

The wildlife centre manager said the majority of weather predicting marmots are kept in wildlife centres, although Winnipeg does use a stuffed one.

Real life marmots will rear their heads out from hibernation in the first couple of weeks of March.

While Okanagan Okie predicted an early spring, two other Canadian weather-predicting marmots in Quebec and Novia Scotia predicted a long winter ahead, while Ontario's Wiarton Willie claimed an early spring is on the way.

READ MORE: Groundhog Day: Shubenacadie Sam, Wiarton Willie disagree on weather forecast

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