Those following the saga of April the giraffe have been transfixed on the below Animal Adventure Park Giraffe Cam, with nearly 200,000 people currently watching as signs of April having contractions in preparation for the birth of her baby giraffe have brought eyeballs to the video.
As reported by Fox 13 Now , the Animal Adventure Park has been updating their followers via their Facebook page on news about April the giraffe. One recent post, the evening update published April 1, showed the Animal Adventure Park claiming that the joke was on them, because April didn’t have her baby giraffe on April Fools’ Day, as many people thought she might.
With no April Fools’ baby giraffe in sight, the park noted that April the mommy giraffe was acting relaxed enough to posit the guess that the baby giraffe wouldn’t arrive before midnight closed out the day of pranks. While they noted that April ignored her grain, shortly after midnight in the wee hours of April 2, April began chomping her food once more. But the giraffe’s manure size and consistency indicates that April could indeed have a baby giraffe before long, even though the Animal Adventure Park was hesitant to call April in “active labor.”
Watch live: April the giraffe’s live video feed is back up! https://t.co/BpKJ3DykiM pic.twitter.com/BUdd3PAzjl
— FOX2now (@FOX2now) April 2, 2017
Since the time is getting close, the Animal Adventure Park led people to AprilTheGiraffeAlert.com in order to sign up for text messages to learn when April the giraffe was giving birth, as well as additional updates. As noted on the website, people can pay a $4.99 fee once in order to get a variety of real-time updates about April the giraffe, Oliver, and the baby giraffe as they happen.
“Real-time alerts for your favorite giraffe family are now available on your mobile device! Get exclusive, real-time updates on Oliver, April and her baby before and after birth directly on your phone through our new text/SMS alert system. Subscribers will be the first to receive updates and will enjoy content that the general viewing audience does not have access to. The cost is a one-time charge of $4.99 (data and messaging rates may apply from your mobile carrier. Messages may be sent through May 31st 2017.) TEXT ALERT SYSTEM: The Labor Alert and Baby Update text system is now ready for you to subscribe! It will provide you immediate updates, and exclusive content, from labor to May 31st. This will be your first line for updates from labor, to first steps, to first day outside, and more. This is the one and only true up to the minute source and notification system for April and baby.”
When some people on Facebook bemoaned the $4.99 fee that was being charged as a one-time fee to get text updates for April, the Animal Adventure Park confirmed that they are charging the $4.99 in order to defray costs they’ve incurred. The park noted that they underwent 10 hours of setup on April 1 for the text message system, and reported that they are charged for each text they send out. They told their supporters to either choose to pay the $4.99, if they were so inclined, or to choose not to pay and not to receive the updates by text about April the giraffe.
Either way, the park asked people to be realistic about the expenses behind the texting process.
What if the giraffe being pregnant is just a prolonged April Fools joke? HER NAME IS APRIL pic.twitter.com/3tRd3rc6lc
— Shey (@sheystheman) April 2, 2017
As seen in the featured photo above, a female giraffe calf appeared with her mother, Barbro, at the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens in 2016. At that point, the baby giraffe had not even been named, but already stood taller than six feet tall and began walking within 30 minutes of its birth. Time will tell how quickly April’s baby giraffe calf begins walking, and no doubt hundreds of thousands of people, if not into the millions, will be watching via live-stream video of the birth.
[Featured Image by Jeff Chiu/AP Images]