Greenville Zoo Celebrates Newborn Giraffe

GREENVILLE — After two days of anticipation, Greenville Zoo officials on Wednesday introduced baby giraffe, Kiko, to a throng of eager onlookers and the media.

The healthy 118-pound male Masai giraffe was born to parents Autumn and Walter Monday night in an event viewed online by people all over the world.

Kiko, whose name means "Autumn's child" in Swahili, didn't disappoint. Alternately following his mother around, nursing, or just snoozing in the grass, a crowd of about 200 eagerly snapped pictures and generally doted on and cooed over the new baby.

Some folks came from as far as North Carolina and Georgia to see Kiko, whose gestation and birth, chronicled live and online, has already exceeded one million viewers, Zoo Director Jeff Bullock said.

One woman came all the way from Boone, in far western North Carolina, to see the zoo's new celebrity.

"I watched it all online, and I wasn't going to miss this for anything," she said. "He's incredible and beautiful. With all that is going on in the world, Kiko gives me hope and happiness. I've been smiling ever since I got here."

It helps that Kiko is incredibly cute. How cute? Said a zoo worker: "I work with the reptiles, so that is just plain, furry cute. He just has cuteness coming out of his pores."