A fugitive 3-year-old giraffe was found via helicopter on Friday after two weeks on the run from her home at a private ranch in Texas.
The 1,200-pound giraffe, named Gracie, wandered away from her unfenced habitat at Cedar Hollow Ranch in Leakey, Texas, on June 12.
The 10-foot-tall animal was located by helicopter on Friday morning about four miles south of the ranch in a remote, heavily-wooded area.
Vick Jones, who manages the ranch, told FOX 7 that Gracie moved there in May and still wasn’t used to her surroundings when she wandered away.
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He explained that she likely didn’t mean to leave the ranch, but had been feeding in an area of the ranch that giraffes never had before and got out and came back on the wrong side of the gate.
Gracie is one of two giraffes who live on the property.
“Just one of them bad deals that happen, you know?” he told the station. “And inadvertently, like I say, we’ve never had giraffes go up in that area before and she did.”
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Jones decided to post a missing alert for Gracie on a local lost and found app.
“I just thought, well, maybe some of the locals out on the ranches, people who work on some of these ranches might would see that or hear about it and give me an idea of which way she might have went off the property,” Jones explained. “And 24 hours later, it’s all over the world.”
The post quickly went viral, with people making AI photos of Gracie everywhere from working as a lifeguard at a pool, as a firefighter who doesn’t need a ladder or floating down a lazy river in a floaty.
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“I now know what the word viral means,” Jones joked.
Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said Jones called a veterinarian after Gracie was found Friday, and they are getting ready to send a team to get her back to the ranch.
“She’s in good shape,” Jones said. “She’s standing there, swishing her tail.”
He also stressed that she is a gentle giant who wasn’t of any harm to anyone.
“If you move toward her, she’s taking off,” he said.
Gracie was found on empty private property near a pond and creek and had plenty of vegetation to eat.
For the trip home, Gracie will need to be sedated, have a hood put over her eyes, and then she’ll be transported in an open-air trailer, then an enclosed trailer made for giraffes.
Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of captive exotic animals in the U.S. and Johnson said in the past he’s had calls for lost monkeys and zebras but no giraffes.
Despite requiring jackhammering through rock, Jones said he now plans to put a fence around Gracie’s enclosure.