Staten Island Chuck has more than his own shadow to be scared of when he’s pulled out of hibernation on Monday.
Mayor de Blasio, after leaving the public in the dark as to whether he would attend this year, announced Sunday he will return to the Staten Island Zoo for the annual Groundhog Day ceremony — one year after he dropped the ceremonial groundhog, which died days later.
“Groundhog Day festivities as of right now are scheduled as planned,” the mayor’s spokesman, Phil Walzak, said. “He’ll be there.”
Last year, the mayor dropped Chuck — who was being played by female stand-in Charlotte — and the weather-predicting rodent died a week later from internal injuries, The Post exclusively reported in September.
Lucky for Chuck, the US Department of Agriculture has stepped in, and the zoo made some changes to Monday’s ceremony. Instead of letting the mayor’s clumsy hands handle the hog, Chuck will be safely contained in a glass box.
The changes come after the Staten Island Zoo was cited by the US Department of Agriculture in October for letting an “untrained person” handle the groundhog.
Officials also didn’t reveal last year that the real Chuck had been benched because the zoo feared he could bite de Blasio, as he did then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2009.
The zoo has four groundhogs and said it will select this year’s groundhog on the day of the ceremony.