EEB Professor Dan Blumstein Quoted on NPR on the the tradition of Groundhog Day in the U.S.
EEB Professor Dan Blumstein Quoted on NPR, "How Groundhog Day came to the U.S. — and why we still celebrate it 137 years later", on the tradition of Groundhog Day in the U.S.
"Daniel Blumstein is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, the group of 15 species of large ground squirrels that includes groundhogs. His department always has a Groundhog Day party, even in perennially-sunny Los Angeles — but he says you don't have to be a 'marmot enthusiast' (as he describes himself) to get something out of the day.
'I hope that people have some greater appreciation of marmots and nature, and I hope that people have a chuckle over the idea that it's the middle of the winter and we're hoping that a rodent will tell us what the future is,' says Blumstein."