Despite their heavy-bodied appearance, groundhogs are accomplished swimmers and excellent tree climbers when escaping predators or when they want to survey their surroundings.^[6] They prefer to retreat to their burrows when threatened; if the burrow is invaded, the groundhog tenaciously defends itself with its two large incisors and front claws. Groundhogs are generally agonistic and territorial among their own species, and may skirmish to establish dominance.

General Beauregard Lee is a groundhog that resides at the Yellow River Game Ranch in Lilburn, Georgia just outside of Atlanta. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Georgia - "DWP, Doctor of Weather Prognostication" and Georgia State University - "Doctor of Southern Groundology." He has been predicting early springs or late winters for fourteen years and the Game Ranch claims a 94% accuracy rate. However, he did have one major miss: in 1993 he predicted an early Spring but Georgia was hit with a blizzard that crippled the Southeast for nearly a week and a half, sometimes called the "Storm of the Century".

(source: wikipedia)