Chuck the groundhog has been preparing for his big day in the spotlight on Feb. 2 by riding public transit with his trainer on their way to and from the Staten Island Zoo.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

Chuck the groundhog waddled out of his open carrier and onto the desk in the tiny reception office in the Staten Island Zoo. He walked onto the phone and stepped on a few buttons. A house line rang. “Thank you for calling the Staten Island Zoo,” the female voice said on the speaker. “You have reached the director’s office.”

Chuck left no message, or rather, he left a long, blank message, which is typical Chuck. It was just after 4 on Thursday last week, and Chuck was waiting to clock out and catch the bus.

Every weekend, Chuck, a strapping young hog born in April, goes home with his trainer, Douglas Schwartz, who works Sundays to Thursdays. This allows him to spend as much time with Mr. Schwartz as possible, and on the hourlong trip on public transit (Mr. Schwartz doesn’t drive), to get used to the prying eyes of strangers.

The hope is that when he makes his big debut next month he will not bite Regis in the face, or leave something unfortunate on Diane Sawyer’s desk, or, worst of all, see his shadow in the klieg lights and shrink back into his pet carrier for six weeks. “On Groundhog Day itself,” Mr. Schwartz said, “the limo just appears and whizzes us off to wherever. He has to always be on point.”

Chuck doesn’t get much chance to interact with the public during the week. He lives in a big cage in the zoo’s basement, which Mr. Schwartz says is fine with Chuck but which seems like a waste of the zoo’s sole marquee resident. “I’d like him to have his own exhibit, but it becomes a money thing,” said Mr. Schwartz, the zookeeper in charge of the zoo’s tropical rainforest. “ ‘Do you want reindeer, or does Chuck get an exhibit?’ ‘Well, we want reindeer.’ Reindeer are a very popular attraction with kids these days.”