All Good Things To Those Who Wait...

Well, it's about damn time.  Not that I was really impatient with April, the giraffe.  I was mostly tired of the constant "news" updates of reporters chiming in that "Nope, no baby yet."  Although, to be fair, I really must say that I've been impressed by the collective staying power of the internet's attention span.  I expected everyone to have fizzled out and gone over to the latest viral meme or webcam by now.

Okay, that's enough cynicism.  Congratulations to Animal Adventure Park for their bouncing baby boy.  Hopefully all of this goes on to reflect more attention of the suddenly, surprisingly imperiled giraffe, and what zoos can do to help save them.  Sometimes it just takes that personal connection to get people to care, like feeding a giraffe at a zoo, or smelling its breath from a viewing platform... or spending a total of 18 hours watching webcams and waiting for labor to start.

If there's one another lesson I'd love to take away, it's this.  April began her climb to notoriety when the anti-zoo folks tried to block her webcam from YouTube, claiming it was pornographic and sexualized.  This led to a well-deserved backlash as everyone wanted to see what all the fuss was about, turning a pregnant giraffe from a local celebrity to a beloved internet icon and causing the collective internet to rally around the zoo's reasonably bemused proprietor.  Sometimes, all publicity really is good publicity.