YouTube pulls zoo’s feed of giraffe birth over nudity
A New York zookeeper scolded animal rights “extremists” on Thursday after live video of a giraffe birth was temporarily removed from YouTube over complaints of nudity and sexually explicit content.
The Animal Adventure Park, in Harpursville, N.Y., started running a live broadcast earlier this month from its giraffe pen, where 15-year-old April was expected to go into labour. She was showing the signs: pacing, “star gazing,” waxing of the teats, irritability and anxiety, according to zoo owner Jordan Patch. By Wednesday, thousands were watching the feed, waiting for the giraffe to give birth.
But the video was pulled from YouTube on Thursday morning for violating the site’s guidelines, Patch told the National Post.
He accused “animal rights activists and extremists” of erroneously reporting the video to YouTube as nude, sexual content.
“It was their way to have the feed eliminated,” Patch said in an email. “They found a creative way to temporarily remove the l i ve link.”
The giraffe had yet to go into labour, so the video wasn’t showing anything “graphic by any stretch of the imagination,” Patch said. The graphic part will come eventually, he said, when “you’re certainly going to see a baby coming out of the back end of the giraffe.” As of 4 p.m. Thursday, however, April the giraffe had yet to give birth.
Roughly 67,000 people were watching the live feed anyway.
Patch posted a video to Facebook, explaining the situa- tion and admonishing those who lodged complaints for ruining a learning experience for “tens of millions of individuals.”
“I would hope that YouTube can realize there was no pornography or nudity on our giraffe cam,” Patch said in his Facebook video, holding lettuce in his hand as a giraffe in a pen behind him sniffed at his head.
A YouTube spokesperson suggested the removal was a mistake, noting that 400 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Users can flag a video if they think it’s inappropriate. If YouTube staff agree, the video is shut down.
“Sometimes we make the wrong call,” YouTube’s statement read. “When it’s brought to our attention that content has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.”
The live video was back on YouTube within an hour, around 8:30 a.m. In the short time it was off, Patch said he was flooded with hundreds of concerned messages.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( PETA) denied any involvement in the effort to remove the video on Thursday. Nonetheless, the group released a statement bemoaning the fact that “another giraffe will be born into captivity.”
“He or she will be denied virtually everything natural and important to him or her so people can gawk at the spectacle of having a giraffe in New York state,” PETA said in an email.
Patch dismissed the statement.
“Everything that matters and is important to that giraffe is provided to them in a stress- free manner,” he said. “We can’t debate with ( PETA), because we’re not going to change their minds.”
WE’RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE (PETA’S) MINDS.