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Nosy internet can't wait for April the giraffe to give birth

Oh baby. Social media can't wait for this very special delivery, which will be livestreamed.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read

Don't stick your neck out in hopes of seeing April's giraffe calf born any time soon.

The Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, New York, started livestreaming the activity in its pregnant-giraffe's pen back on Feb. 22. But as any woman who's ever been pregnant can tell you, babies have their own schedules. More than a week later, there's still no calf, and the internet is getting restless.


On Thursday morning, the park issued an update that pretty much said, "nothing to see here, please move along."

"April is well and conditions remain the same from last evening," a post on the park's Facebook page read. "A lot of behavior that had us on our toes but no acknowledgeable active labor at this time."

The livestream saw as many as 30 million views in 12 hours, the park reported on Facebook -- even though YouTube mistakenly took it down for a while last week, when someone reported it for sexual content or nudity.

And almost since the cameras clicked on, fans have been impatiently awaiting the special delivery.

Even April herself is feeling the pressure, especially since news broke of a surprise baby giraffe, Dobby, born at the Denver Zoo on Tuesday, despite mama Kipele being on birth control. (It happens.)

April is 15, and an old hand at birthin' babies: This is her fourth, and the park notes on the livestream say that she's never had a miscarriage or a stillbirth. But it's the first with baby daddy Oliver, who's just 5. The park's official site for April notes that giraffes are pregnant for 15 months, and the baby will weigh around 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and be about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall.

It's the calm before the storm, really, because once the calf is here, the park plans to hold a contest to name it -- and we all know how well those sometimes go.

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