In recent years, the custom has become a world phenomenon. It attracts media-coverage from as far as Europe and Asia, thanks mainly to the popularity of the 1993 Hollywood movie 'Groundhog Day', starring Bill Murray.

Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are members of the squirrel family and reside throughout the east and mid-west sections of the United States and most of Canada. They are excellent diggers and live in complex underground systems of burrows.