The Oregon Zoo’s Stumptown Fil Agrees With Punxsutawney Phil, Predicts Six More Weeks of Winter

So far, the 10-year-old beaver has a zero percent accuracy rate for predicting the weather.

Stumptown Fil

In case you missed the important announcement from America's best-known oracle, Punxsutawney Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter.

Without his usual audience but still surrounded by plenty of dudes in top hats, the groundhog saw his shadow when he crawled out of his shrine at Gobbler's Knob earlier today.

More importantly, Oregon's own furry fortuneteller is in agreement.

This morning, Stumptown Fil, aka Oregon Zoo beaver Filbert, made his own prediction. Without much pomp and circumstance but plenty of fruit and veggie treats, Filbert selected a scroll from a makeshift stand that read "six more weeks of winter."

"Groundhogs like Punxsutawney Phil are fine for their part of the country," zookeeper Christina Parr said in a press release. "Here in the Northwest, though, we are beaver believers."

Stumptown Fil made his debut last year, but 10-year-old Filbert has long been a fan favorite at the Oregon Zoo: A video of Filbert and his best friend, Maple, building a dam together has over 1 million views.

So far, Stumptown Fil has a zero percent accuracy rate for predicting the weather. Last year, he predicted an early spring, only for the zoo to close due to snow and ice in March. To be fair, though, Punxsutawney Phil doesn't have a great track record either—in the 100-plus years that the tradition has taken place, the groundhog has been right less than half the time.

But even though large rodents are obviously not qualified to predict the weather, it's worth celebrating that beavers, a native species, have been able to make such an impressive comeback after they were nearly hunted to extinction.

And, unlike Phil, Fil's prediction isn't communicated by a bunch of top-hatted men referred to as the "Inner Circle."

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