Gracie, a 3-year-old giraffe, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, according to ranch owner Vic Jones. The ranch is located about 100 miles west of San Antonio in rural Real County.
Escape and Search Efforts
Jones said Gracie wandered into a part of the privately owned preserve that other giraffes had previously avoided. "She wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other giraffes had ever gone on before," Jones said. "And when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate."
Jones has deployed helicopters to search for Gracie, and a few sightings have been reported, but she remains elusive. A $5,000 reward is offered for information leading to her recovery.
Remote Terrain Challenges
The search area is extremely remote, covering about 7,500 acres initially, with later sightings to the south. "We're always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough," Jones said. He noted that the likelihood of Gracie encountering humans is low, as she is in very rough, heavily wooded lands.
Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. He listed other missing animals over the years, including wildebeests, water buffalo, monkeys, and zebras, but noted this was his first giraffe. "Sometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don't," Johnson said.
Gracie's Survival Prospects
Despite not being in a native environment, Jones said Gracie should find plenty of leaves and vegetation to eat, and other animals are unlikely to bother her. The mild climate and rugged terrain of the Texas Hill Country serve as a good stand-in for the animals' native African environments, according to Sheriff Johnson.
Jones remains hopeful that Gracie will be found, but the search continues with no confirmed sightings in recent days.
