Mayor de Blasio isn’t afraid of his own shadow – just that he might kill another groundhog before the furry prognosticator can see its own.
Hizzoner said he doesn’t plan to ever return to the Staten Island Zoo for Groundhog Day festivities after his 2014 fumble killed the woodchuck weatherman during the annual ceremony his first year in office.
“I tried it, it didn’t end well, I won’t be back,” de Blasio said with a hearty laugh on Tuesday, joking that the event is the “highlight” of his year.
De Blasio infamously dropped Staten Island Chuck – played by a 10-month-old female groundhog named Charlotte – several feet during the 2014 proceedings when she crawled up his glove-clad arm. She died of “internal injuries” a week later.
Staten Island Zoo officials insisted de Blasio didn’t kill Charlotte, though the exact cause of her fatal injuries was never determined.
De Blasio attended the ceremony the next year in 2015, when the zoo made changes for the safety of all participants. The groundhog was hidden in an acrylic enclosure and no one touched Chuck.
The mayor hasn’t been back for the prediction since – and said that there’s nothing but safety stopping him from returning.
“I guarantee you it’s not about a schedule conflict,” he said at an unrelated event in Brooklyn Tuesday. “It’s just good to leave it in the past. I think the groundhogs deserve that. They need to be safe. I’ve been advised by wildlife experts to stay in a 5-mile radius away from any groundhogs for their own protection.”
Mike Bloomberg was the first mayor to hold Chuck during the zoo’s Groundhog Day ceremony. After Bloomberg was bit by the groundhog in 2009, he called Chuck a “son of a b—-” and the Staten Island Zoo began providing him and elected officials with large gloves to handle him. The large yellow gloves de Blasio wore for the 2014 prediction may have caused him to lose his grip on the groundhog.
