Baby Giraffe's Birth Reverberates Through The Web

A new baby giraffe came into the world to more than just the warm nuzzles of its mother. It received a warm welcome from the world. At 11:49 p.m., Autumn, a giraffe on loan from the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston to the Greenville Zoo for breeding, gave birth to a baby giraffe at 11:49 p.m., roughly an hour after zoo officials confirmed she had gone into labor. 

Crystal Rose, public services manager at the Greenville Zoo, said the labor and delivery of the new giraffe went off without a hitch, and in unusually quick time for a first-time mother. 

Rose said that two weeks ago the zoo set up a web came through EarthCam.Net so others could monitor Autumn's progress. 

"It went from about 200,000 people viewing it to becoming the second most visited webcam EarthCam has ever hosted," Rose said.

She said roughly 1 million people have now tuned into the webcam. 

Rose also said Tuesday that social media had "exploded" during the birth of the new giraffe, as the Greenville Zoo's Facebook page has more than doubled it's Facebook following since they began monitoring Autumn's progress - even adding some 3,000 new followers over the past 24 hours for a grand total of more than 23,000 likes. 

Rose confirmed that the baby giraffe will undergo a neonatal exam Wednesday morning, and that at 1 p.m., a press conference will be held to release the sex of the animal and it's measurements, as well as its name.