{"id":530416,"date":"2026-03-12T02:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530416\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T02:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:10:09","slug":"wiarton-willie-famed-groundhog-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530416\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiarton Willie, famed groundhog, has died"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published on Mar. 11, 2026, 1:42 PM<\/p>\n<p>This iteration of Willie was appointed in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Wiarton Willie, Ontario\u2019s most famous groundhog, has died. Again.<\/p>\n<p>This iteration of Willie had been leading Groundhog Day festivities for three years.<\/p>\n<p>The Town of South Bruce Peninsula made the sad announcement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is with great sadness that the Town of South Bruce Peninsula announces that our beloved weather prognosticator, Wiarton Willie, has passed away peacefully in sleep,\u201d the town says in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southbrucepeninsula.com\/en\/news\/town-of-south-bruce-peninsula-announces-the-passing-of-beloved-wiarton-willie.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWillie was a curious and charismatic groundhog who delighted both residents and visitors. Willie enjoyed basking in the summer sun, taking long winter naps, and indulging in favourite foods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Willie was one of three groundhogs who predicted an early spring this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on Mar. 11, 2026, 1:42 PM This iteration of Willie was appointed in 2023. Wiarton Willie, Ontario\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-530416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}