A zoo baby’s birth usually causes a small, local frenzy. Those furry faces and clumsy, untested limbs effortlessly attract the media’s lens and the public’s affection.


Last Friday Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, N.Y., hosted the birth of a species more exotic to menageries. On Dec. 7, at 11 a.m., a 21-year-old woman delivered a baby girl near the zoo’s bear exhibit.
Zoo employees were quick to assist in the labor. They radioed for backup and assembled blankets. According to Rosamond Gifford Zoo Director Ted Fox, Liz Schmidt and Sarah Kohler, both first responders, were the first to arrive at the delivery. Schmidt attended the mother throughout the birth and checked the newborn’s vital signs.
When Liz Schmidt and Sarah Kohler arrived on the scene she was in full labor. Within minutes she had given birth to the baby," Fox said.
A member of the woman’s family called Onondaga County EMTs. The woman was rushed to the hospital following the delivery.