If there were two things you would not think of as being replacements for the news (un) worthy world of politics, it would be a pregnant giraffe and a giant chicken, but that is what happened this week. Thank goodness for a bit of strangeness in the midst of chaos.
April the giraffe at the Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, New York, is expecting another calf, but either her conception date was off or she is way overdue. The typical giraffe pregnancy lasts 15 months, so she’s going on double the amount of time we human ladies spend with swollen feet and back pain. And look at the legs she stands on every day.
A live feed has been tracking her for some time now, and viewers are anxiously waiting for the first signs that we will witness the miracle of birth. What is a real miracle is that giraffe give birth standing up, so the baby’s welcome to world is a fall, head and front feet first, of several feet to the ground. In the wild, they must stand and start walking quickly or risk being dinner to the predators lurking about.
The feed was removed temporarily after somebody complained about the content being too sexual in nature, but common sense prevailed and it was restored. A problem with the video spurred numerous phone calls to the site; nobody wants to miss the big moment.
And then there is the vieeo of a huge bird emerging from a small coop entrance and puffing out to monstrous proportions to strut about the pen. It was finally identified as a giant Brahma chicken, a huge clucker of a breed created from inter-breeding of similar large fowl. The males weigh in at about 18 pounds. Skeptics claimed the video was of somebody in a costume, but it was confirmed as a real video. The featured chicken is named Merikli and apparently lives on a farm in Kosovo. And undoubtedly the hens love him like some women get hot and steamy over wrestling stars with biceps that could feed a family of ten. But who would really want to serve up this big guy, even though that is the purpose for which he was created?
Believe it or not, instead of thinking about firing up the deep fryer, people have expressed fear of this bird; enough that one could construct a horror movie about it. (Cue ominous-sounding voice-over) “It came from beyond the coop to destroy the earth. More than feathers will fly tonight. Merikli, the Movie, rated R for scenes of rooster violence.”
Yes, it has been a bad week for politics, but a good one to be just a little crazy with animals in the news. They’re a whole lot more interesting than the animals in Washington, like the weasels, snakes and hyenas. I’ll take eight straight hours of April strolling her pen, or meeting up with Merikli in a dark alley, to fifteen more seconds of political fodder, and it looks like lately lots of other people agree with me. If the president wants truth in news, these are it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnQCgFa9lCBL-KXZMOoO9Q/live
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