This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A New York zoo’s much-discussed livestream video of its pregnant giraffe showed her giving birth on Saturday.

April the pregnant giraffe: live stream attracts millions – and YouTube censors Read more

Adventure Park’s YouTube feed captured the big moment shortly before 10am ET when April, a 15-year-old giraffe, delivered in an enclosed pen at the zoo in Harpursville, a village about 130 miles north-west of New York City.

The mother giraffe tenderly licked her calf, which began to slowly pick its head up from the floor of the pen. About 45 minutes after it was born, the calf stood on its wobbly legs for the first time, while its mother helped keep it steady.

The zoo later said the calf was male. Its entry to the world, zoo owner Jordan Patch said, “was unnerving to even those of us who have witnessed animal births previously”.

The calf is April’s fourth, but Animal Adventure Park’s first giraffe calf. It is expected to weigh about 150lbs (68.04kg) and be about 6ft (1.83m) tall, and will be named through a competition.

Its father is a five-year-old giraffe named Oliver, who watched the delivery from an adjacent pen.

More than a million people watched the YouTube stream on Saturday morning. Millions around the world have viewed it since it started in late February. April has her own website and even an apparel line.



A GoFundMe fundraiser page that initially set a goal of $50,000 sat at more than $125,000 on Saturday morning. The money will be used for the care of the animals.



Following the birth, a sponsor’s logo on the YouTube feed quickly changed from ToysRUs to BabiesRUs.

In February the zoo achieved momentary fame after YouTube cut the live stream when what the zoo called “animal rights extremists” alleged a violation of the website’s “nudity and sexual content” policy.

Patch, said the decision to pull the stream “pulled an educational tool away from tens of millions of individuals”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Watch live: April the giraffe and her newborn calf

The wait for the giraffe to give birth became an anxiety-ridden experience for some. A songwriter from Farmington, New Hampshire even posted a music video on YouTube called, “I’m Going Crazy Waiting (For A Giraffe).”

On Saturday, reaction on social media was ebullient and hopeful. Messages on Twitter included: “We did it, internet! We had a giraffe baby together”, “Everybody sticking their neck out for this baby giraffe” and “On a day where ‘mother of all bombs’ is a trending phrase, I love how the world unites over the birth of a baby giraffe”.