April the Giraffe is pregnant — again!
For upon |Last year’s live-stream star, April the Giraffe, is back in the spotlight and ready to play the waiting (for a baby) game again with her millions of fans.
Congratulations are in order for everyone’s favorite long-necked mom, April the Giraffe. The 16-year-old resident of Animal Adventure Park is pregnant again!
That’s right, the same giraffe who gained fame last year for a live-streamed pregnancy that seemed like it would never end — until it finally did with the birth of her boy Tajiri in April — is now expecting baby No. 5.
“The results are in and we are having a baby!” park owner Jordan Patch announced on TODAY Wednesday morning.
Inquiring minds wanted to know, so Savannah Guthrie just had to ask: “Who’s the daddy?”
“What show is this?” Patch said with a laugh before adding, “Of course, it is Oliver the Giraffe, the same father as Tajiri.”
No one knows yet if Tajiri has a little brother or sister on the way, and no one will know until April gives birth again. But we do know approximately when that will happen.
“The average (gestation period) for a giraffe is 15 months,” Patch explained, but he cautioned that, “April likes to go 16, 17, 18 … 19 months.”
So go ahead and clear your calendar for some serious live-stream viewing time in the spring of 2019.
While TODAY spread the good news Wednesday morning, it’s been a happy secret at Animal Adventure Park for a couple of weeks. The very first hints that just maybe a baby was on the way came in the form of a video shared on the Harpursville, New York, facility’s Facebook page late last month.
In it, Patch shared that a big test was underway.
The purpose of the video was to announce that they were evaluating a month’s worth of samples from April “to test whether or not we’re expecting another giraffe calf.”
In this case, “samples” meant 30 days’ worth of giraffe poop, and after collecting it, it had to be shipped off to another facility for testing.
“We’ve done a lot watching and a lot looking and we all have our opinions,” zoologist Alysa Swilley told Patch, adding, “But until we’re 100% sure, I’m not saying anything.”
April the giraffe and baby Tajiri celebrate the calf’s first birthday
Well, at least April is no stranger to the watching-and-waiting game. In fact, the live cam that revealed her long road to labor last year just went live again on Tuesday, and it’s already offering up glimpses of Mama, papa (aka 6-year-old Oliver), and Tajiri in their enclosures.
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Those who followed last year’s pregnancy saga will remember that April the Giraffe wasn’t the only spotted and pregnant viral sensation. There was also a masked mom — of the human variety — who hitched her own cam on April’s fame for a fun spoof.
“Giraffe mom” Erin Dietrich even came face-to-face with April after they’d both had their babes.
Watch pregnant mom spoof giraffe cam in a hilarious mask
Fans will have to wait and see if April gets another motherly support act this time around, and a lot of them are sure to be watching for that and any other developments. After all, when April’s live stream came to an end last time, on April 21, it had more than 232 million views total and more than 1.2 million viewers were watching as the massive mammal gave birth.
And another birth isn’t just happy news for April and her fans. According to Patch, this is something for the whole animal kingdom to celebrate.
“Every calf counts,” he told TODAY. “Giraffe populations have declined by 40 percent in the past 30 years, so every calf born in a captive management program means something.”
The article was originally published here.
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