Chimpanzee birth to be live-streamed

A primate sanctuary in South Africa on Tuesday announced it will live-stream the birth of a baby chimpanzee on the Internet, an online event it claims will be a world first.

The Jane Goodall Institute is set to screen the labour of Nina, a nine-year-old chimp rescued from wild animal meat hunters in South Sudan in 2007, via the website wildearth.tv.

Already online, the stream shows the primate mother-to-be lying on bamboo shreds in a room, scratching herself and playing with a wrapper and a bright pink ball.

From time to time she jumps on perches around the room, moving in and out of view of the camera.

Nina is expected to give birth in the next few days.

"We do not know if she will accept the baby, as she herself was tragically robbed of a normal childhood in the wild with her chimpanzee family," said the sanctuary, which rescues and rehabilitates abused chimps.

Under normal circumstances, the sanctuary has "a strict non-breeding policy, but the implant failed and today we wait for Nina to give birth," said the institute, which was made famous by the series "Escape to Chimp Eden" on America's Animal Planet network.