Big baby on the way! SC zoo awaits special arrival any day, as millions watch online
Imagine being 14 years old and giving birth six times. That’s the life of Greenville’s Masai giraffe, Autumn, who is due any day now with her sixth calf.
“We’re on baby watch. The bedding is down in the stalls — it’s mulch,” said Lynn Watkins, the education curator at the Greenville Zoo.
And thousands are watching online on EarthCam for any sign that Autumn is set to deliver. As of Thursday morning, some 13.4 million views had been recorded.
Watkins said so many people watch online that sometimes they call the zoo to say Autumn is ready to go.
Signs of labor are few, but it is generally believed the cow will start to pace when it’s time. She’ll give birth standing up to a calf that is about 6 feet tall. The fall won’t hurt the baby, and within an hour the baby will be walking around.
Autumn’s family story sounds much like a Jane Austen novel, if, of course, giraffes were people. She has experienced the death of one calf, has had three other babies transferred to other zoos, and has been involved with two mates in her 14 years.
Autumn came to the Greenville Zoo from Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo in 2007, when a giraffe enclosure was built. She came at roughly the same time as Walter from the San Diego Zoo as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, which matches zoo animals around the country with an eye toward maintaining genetic diversity. Masai giraffes are endangered in the wild.
Autumn and Walter had three calves over four years, one of which — named Roho — was breech and stillborn in 2014. Their first was Kiko in 2012 and then Tatu in 2016.
Kiko fathered a calf earlier this year at the Toronto Zoo, where he has been since 2015, with Mstari, a 6-year-old Masai giraffe born at the Toronto Zoo.
Tatu was transferred to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley Zoo in 2017 to replace another Masai giraffe who was killed six months earlier by his father, according to The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Walter was sent to the Turtle Back Zoo in Essex County, N.J., in 2016, where he died in 2017 while under anesthesia during a dental procedure.
A new partner for Autumn was brought to the Greenville Zoo, from Houston, in 2016. His name is Miles. They have since produced two, soon to be three calves.
In 2018, Autumn gave birth to Kiden, her only female offspring, who was sent to Oregon Zoo in Portland earlier this year.
That leaves Kellan, born in 2019, at the Greenville Zoo. He is likely to be sent to another zoo next year, said Watkins.
Giraffes have a 15-month gestation period and can live as long as 30 years in captivity, she said.