April the Giraffe (finally) gives birth and it's a ... giraffe

It has been a monumental timesucking adventure watching April the Giraffe's impending birth at Animal Adventure Park in upstate New York as millions have watched and waited alongside her caregivers via live feed. After over a month and a half of trauma, today the feed is down and April is a new mom to baby number four!

If you haven't kept up with the mamma drama, like human babies, giraffe babies come when they are ready albeit sooner or later than mom wants. And since keepers can't ask April when she got knocked up, the due date was a guessing game. And after 16 months of pregnancy, we're sure April was more impatient than the rest of the watching-world to give birth.

When the live feed began a month ago a mere 37,000 people tuned in to watch. As the pregnancy progressed the numbers increased. The feed that began March 14 had almost 4 million viewers. The final feed had just over 1 million viewers, and considering it's a holiday and a Saturday, is impressive.

April even got sponsorship from another famous giraffe, Geoffrey from Toys 'R' Us.

While we were waiting for April to give birth another giraffe in Denver,  Kipele, gave birth to an oops baby they are calling Dobby. Kipele was on birth control, so it wasn't until her body started changing that zookeepers realized she may be pregnant. She resisted ultrasounds for a while which also delayed the confirmation of the pregnancy. Dobby is happy and healthy.

What did you learn about giraffe's through this experience?

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