While You Were Watching Animal Adventure Park’s Live Cam, These Giraffes All Gave Birth

Getting impatient as you watch Animal Adventure Park’s live cam and wait for April the Giraffe to give birth? You certainly aren’t alone, but you may not have been aware of the other giraffes that popped out a bouncing baby calf since the Harpursville, N.Y. petting zoo launched its giraffe cam. Just how many are there?

Taking into account how Animal Adventure Park’s extremely popular April the Giraffe has not yet given birth in the six weeks or so since the park’s giraffe cam was launched, CBS Denver compiled a list of giraffe births in zoos that had taken place in that timeframe. Starting out with the home city’s Denver Zoo, the report first listed the birth of the calf named Dobby on February 28. This birth was particularly interesting, as his mother Kipele happened to be on birth control, thus catching zookeepers by surprise when she unexpectedly gave birth to Dobby.

For a look back at what was happening on Animal Adventure Park’s live cam on that day, the park’s Facebook page posted an April the Giraffe update on February 28 that documented “major changes” in her back end, as April’s appetite was strong and the baby kept kicking inside her belly. Just like right now, April’s keepers were expecting that the 15-year-old mother giraffe would give birth sooner rather than later, but as April and her partner Oliver were enjoying yard time, Animal Adventure Park a new baby animal – a black belly barbado lamb.

Several weeks later, another British zoo announced a giraffe birth, as South Lakes Safari Zoo confirmed that a rare West African giraffe was born on March 21. A zoo spokesperson was quoted by CBS Denver as having said that the mother giraffe and her baby were the United Kingdom’s “only” West African giraffes, underscoring the rarity of the species. The African Wildlife Foundation’s website notes that there are only less than 600 such giraffes remaining, making the West African variant an endangered species.

On March 21, Animal Adventure Park announced that its live cam would be getting enrichment items moved into camera view, with its update for that morning focusing on how April’s belly size had grown significantly in only a week’s time.

Earlier this week, the Inquisitr wrote about Orla, an eight-year-old Rothschild giraffe from the United Kingdom’s Chester Zoo who gave birth to a calf on Monday, April 3. This was Orla’s third calf, and as the Chester Zoo was able to capture the mother giraffe giving birth as well as the calf’s first few steps, the video was a huge hit, garnering more than 11 million views as of this writing. Making this milestone even more important is the fact that there are less than 1,600 Rothschild giraffes out there in the wild, making it one of the rarer giraffe species in existence.

Orla the giraffe really beat April to it when she gave birth to a healthy calf at the Chester Zoo in England. Th… https://t.co/rITgjc0bTL

— heist.eth (@heist7405) April 6, 2017

CBS Denver also wrote that there were two giraffes who gave birth on the other side of the pond on that same Monday, as giraffe calves were born in the Memphis Zoo and the Toledo Zoo.

What were Animal Adventure Park and April the Giraffe up to on April 3? According to another report from the Inquisitr, that was when AAP launched its text alert system, charging subscribers with a one-time fee of $4.99. Aside from revealing the gender of April’s baby once she gives birth, the text updates also promise exclusive photos and videos through May 31. And while many Facebook users were upset that AAP would be charging them to get real-time April the Giraffe updates via text, the park stressed that subscription fees would go to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation Fund.

All in all, that’s at least five giraffe births since the launch of Animal Adventure Park’s live giraffe cam, and none of them involve April herself. But as the park’s latest update suggests, the “baby is kicking, just not coming out,” and though you’ve probably heard this many times before, it might not be much longer before April the Giraffe finally gives birth.

[Featured Image by Jeff Chiu/AP Images]