(CNN) The robots are coming for Punxsutawney Phil's job, too.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the keepers of the weather-forecasting groundhog to let him retire -- and to be replaced by an animatronic groundhog.

PETA wrote in a letter to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club on Monday that it was time for the beloved tradition to change.

Every February 2, Phil gets dragged out of his hole and held up to flashing lights and crowds in what is a highly stressful experience for him, PETA said. And his current accommodations don't allow him to dig, burrow or forage like non-famous groundhogs naturally do.

"It's no kind of life for these animals," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote.

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