Stanley the Giraffe is standing tall and doing perfectly okay … contrary to reports the famous exotic animal was harmed during the devastating California wildfires. But, not everyone’s buying it. A rep at Malibu Wine Safaris tells TMZ ……
Showing posts with label Giraffe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Giraffe. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2018
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
April the Giraffe is Pregnant Again!!!
About a month ago, zookeepers very tentatively shared some exciting news: they were testing April the Giraffe’s droppings to discovery if she was pregnant.
Update, folks: she is pregnant again!
We can hardly contain our excitement!
In case you get your news from Instagram rather than from, um, anywhere else, April the Giraffe’s official (verified with a blue check and everything) Instagram account shared this on Wednesday:
“If you missed our big announcement on the Today Show, here it is!”
Today‘s ratings are better than they’ve been in years after Matt Lauer’s departure, but just in case you missed the news, they wanted to make sure that you’d see it.
“Click below to find out April’s big news!”
The link that they included elaborated on the big news.
Today reports that April the Giraffe is pregnant again. This will be her fifth child.
April is 16 years old.
The Animal Adventure Park resident captivated America last year as she struggled to give birth to Tajiri, her son.
Her birth was livestreamed and seemed like it would take forever, and became a hot topic of conversation around water coolers nationwide.
Tajiri (pictured behind a human in the photo above) is happy and healthy and now stands at a whopping 10 feet tall.
Jordan Patch, who owns Animal Adventure Park, broke the news on Today.
“The results are in,” Patched teased. “And we are having a baby!”
By “we,” he of course means April.
Savannah Guthrie could not resist asking: “Who’s the daddy?”
(I want to roast her over it but, honestly, when I first read the news, my first thought was the same ridiculous question)
“What show is this?” Patch asked with a laugh, as if implying that it was a gotcha question or perhaps that he had accidentally wandered onto the set of Maury.
“Of course,” Patch said of April’s baby daddy. “It is Oliver the Giraffe, the same father as Tajiri.”
Now that people are reassured that April isn’t some floozy, America can look forward to April’s next childbirth.
But … don’t hold your breath.
Though the average giraffe’s gestation period is about 15 months, Patch mentions that “April likes to go 16, 17, 18 … 19 months.”
The pregnancy was only confirmed in recent weeks, so … it could be a while.
That said, you can pencil in another anxiety-riddled giraffe livestream birth for some time in the spring of 2019.
Probably, anyway. Pregnancy can be even more mysterious for giraffes than it is for humans.
Fortunately, the internet is filled with lots of cute animals to tide us over.
Monday, July 2, 2018
American Hunter"s Giraffe Trophy Kill Earns International Outrage
People love non-human animals. That’s why the entire internet was on edge as a racoon scaled a skyscraper just a few weeks ago.
But some people enjoy hunting and killing wildlife so much that they wll travel halfway across the world to hunt a rare, exotic species and share those photos.
One big game hunter’s photos of her posing with a giraffe’s corpse have gone viral as people condemn her. But is there more to this story?
In 2017, Tess Thompson Talley traveled to Africa where she hunted and killed an 18-year-old, 4,000 pound giraffe.
She then posed with the body for a series of haunting, even going so far as to “hug” the dead male in a particularly ghoulish image.
Though she shared the pictures of her “dream hunt” in 2017, the images are going viral now after they were shared by an African Twitter account.
Accompanying two photos of the Kentucky native, the outlet shamed her in an inflammatory tweet.
“White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe,” the tweet begins.
That is deliberately confrontational language — but we should point out that genetic studies do confirm that almost all humans, save portions of Africans, have neanderthal ancestry.
The tweet continues, saying that this horror comes “courtesy of South Africa stupidity.”
That is likely a reference to the fact that a few countries, including South Africa, permit a degree of big game hunting.
“Her name is Tess Thompson Talley,” the tweet concludes. “Please share.”
A follow-up tweet is a little less inflammatory.
“If our so called governments can’t care for our wildlife,” the Africa Digest account writes. “Then its time we stand up and responsibility of our continent, lands, resources and wildlife.”
“Share share share! and lets have a united voice against pillage of Africa,” the tweet says. “It’s the only home we have”
The horrifying photos of Talley’s gruesome “dream hunt” went viral, with people sharing their horror and sorrow.
Even celebrities added their voices to the mix.
On Instagram, actress Debra Messing writes: “Tess Thompson Talley from Nippa, Kentucky is a disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer.”
“With joy in her black heart and a beaming smile,” Messing describes. “She lies next to the dead carcass of a *rare* black giraffe in South Africa.”
While we don’t necessarily object to her characterization of Talley, there is some question as to the rarity of this particular species of giraffe.
“Giraffes are the epitome of gentle giants,” Messing says. “They glide across the plains, like liquid; awe inspiring creatures who spend their days eating leaves and caring for their young.”
“How DARE she,” Messing continues. “A rare animal that will be extinct by the time her grandchildren can go and gutlessly sit in the brush with a scope and pull a trigger.”
In case you missed the grim news, yes, some giraffe species have quietly and quickly slipped from being safe to being critically endangered.
“It does not take skill to have a ranger track a giraffe for you, and with the aid of night vision glasses and a scope, pull a trigger like some Carnival game,” Messing says.
“If you need to eat a giraffe? Get a bow and arrow and make it at least a fair fight,” Messing suggests.
Most would argue that the but I need to hunt for food argument goes out the window when you book a flight from Kentucky to South Africa.
“I am disgusted by people like you Tess,” Messing says. “You reek of privilege and ignorance. Shame on you. And your husband Andrew Claude. Unconscionable. Irreparable damage. Irreplaceable beauty.”
When Tess Thompson Talley first shared the image, she wrote about it.
“Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today!” Talley announced. “Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite a while.”
Like the sorts of stories you usually only hear in people’s engagement stories or a serial killer’s diary, she wrote about when she “knew.”
“I knew it was the one,” Talley says. “He was over 18 years old, 4000 lbs. and was blessed to be able to get 2000 lbs. of meat from him.”
Since her story went viral, Talley has defended her actions, saying that her hunt aids conservation efforts and that killing this older giraffe was doing a favor for the species.
It is true that giraffes are endangered, with overall populations having plummeted by a staggering 40% in the past 25 years.
This particular species, however, seems to be doing okay.
“The giraffe in the photo,” Julian Fennessy of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation says. “Is of the South African species Giraffa giraffe, which are not rare – they are increasing in the wild.”
That’s good news for the South African giraffe.
However, as many have pointed out, the ethical concerns of big game hunting extend far beyond whether or not a species is in danger.
There are issues of cruelty. And, when a white person from a global superpower visits Africa, a continent ravaged by vicious colonialism and genocide, there’s possibly a racist angle.
Killing for conservation is a complicated issue but … wow, the glee in thos photos is a little unsettling.
These stories are never pleasant.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
April The Giraffe Grants Make-A-Wish For 10-Year-Old Boy (PHOTOS)
April the Giraffe just granted a very special wish to a 10-year-old boy who had watched her for months with the rest of the world. Alex, who has a life-threatening seizure disorder, and his family traveled from Ohio to the Animal Adventure…
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
April the Giraffe Seeking New Sponsors for Baby Naming and Live Stream
April the Giraffe is coming back online post-birth … but she needs some serious cash flow for the sake of the animals. The indoor camera feed that captured the birth of April’s baby will be re-launched next week. This one won’t run…
Saturday, April 15, 2017
April the Giraffe FINALLY Gives Birth!!!
It"s the end of an internet era, friends.
For over two months now, so many of us have been focusing a frankly ridiculous amount of attention on a pregnant giraffe living in a New York zoo.
The giraffe, of course, is April. She"s been living her life on a livestream since February, and thousands upon thousands of people have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her baby.
But the wait is over — this morning she gave birth!
A little after 7:30 AM, she went into labor, and her calf was born just before 10:00.
April"s baby is a precious little boy, though he doesn"t have a name yet. Since we"ve all been so invested in her pregnancy, the zoo will give the public a chance to help name the little guy.
The calf, April"s fourth, will stay with her until he"s weaned, which usually happens within six to twelve months, then, sadly, the plan is for him to move onto a different facility.
Though he"s not even a day old yet, he"s already up and moving. In fact, he was standing just half an hour after being born.
Right now, the calf is with April in her enclosure, getting lots of love and attention from both his mother and his father, who"s in the enclosure right next door.
You can check out the whole happy family in the live video below.
Congrats, April!
April the Giraffe Finally Gives Birth and it"s Gnarly!!! (VIDEO)
April the Giraffe finally gave birth Saturday morning after weeks of anticipation … and it was insane!! Her calf’s front legs popped out early this morning and April walked around like that for well over an hour … until finally the rest of her…
April The Giraffe ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH ... WATCH IT LIVE!!! (LIVE STREAM)
The day has finally arrived … April the Giraffe is about to give birth live on camera!!! It’s been a long time coming … April’s had a live stream camera pinned on her since February, when she was first expected to pop. It’s attracted more than…
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Giraffe Gives Birth But It"s Not April
A baby giraffe was born — but it wasn’t April’s — and it’s been nearly two months since her baby-watch live stream first went up. Both the Toledo Zoo and the Chester Zoo in the UK welcomed baby Giraffes this week. April, who’s at The Animal…
Friday, March 31, 2017
April the Giraffe Is NOT for Black People, According to Claudia Jordan (VIDEO)
Apologies to April the Giraffe, but Claudia Jordan and all other black people just don’t care if she ever gives birth … at least that’s what Claudia thinks. The former ‘Real Housewife’ couldn’t believe it when we told her what an…
Thursday, March 16, 2017
April the Giraffe, Big Money Now on the Line
April the Giraffe is about to become a cash cow. The long-necked, pregnant creature has had a camera trained on her for more than a month, and millions have watched and waited for what promises to be an awesome delivery. Now here’s the money…
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