Why does Phil get all the press?

So, today is Groundhog Day. That has to be one of the best movies of all time - certainly one of Bill Murray's best movies ever. And it called to the forefront one of the nation's weather predicting groundhogs - Punxatawnee Phil.

Having lived in Georgia for a time, I also knew about the good ol' boy groundhog, General Beauregard Lee, but I thought that was pretty much it. You know, one for the northern bits of the country, one for the south.

Oh how wrong I was! By this map, there are no less than 36 different weather predicting groundhogs (well, ok, one is an honorary groundhog in the body of a chicken (Furbee the wonder chicken, no less. Those crazy Canadians!) Not sure if that one counts, so let's go with 35.)

So, since a number of them are named some variation of "Chuck" (Chuck Wood, etc.) does that imply that a groundhog is the same animal as a woodchuck? And if so, if they're able to calculate the number of weeks of winter left for us each year, surely they ought to be able to settle once and for all the question of how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuckk wood.