Gracie, a 3-4 year old giraffe, has been found after a days-long search in the Texas Hill Country. She disappeared from Cedar Hollow Ranch and was last seen on a game camera roaming in an area west of Leakey, a small city about 100 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Search Efforts
According to Vick Jones, the giraffe’s owner, Gracie was spotted shortly before 7 a.m. during an aerial search of an area roughly 4 miles from the ranch, near the game camera where she had been seen several days ago. Jones said Gracie was on private ranch land in an area with plenty of food and water and appeared to be happy and healthy.
Jones said finding Gracie was the easy part, and that the real work starts now. He will need to assemble a team to corral Gracie, tranquilize her, and put her on a transport trailer to bring her back to the ranch.
Background
Gracie vanished after feeding on a rocky hillside where the ranch’s other giraffes don’t typically frequent, Jones said. She wandered to an unfenced area on the other side of an 8-foot-tall gate and escaped the ranch.
The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seem to serve as a good stand-in for most of the animals’ native African environments.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
