{"id":764549,"date":"2026-06-27T11:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T11:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/764549\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T11:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T11:02:09","slug":"gracie-the-giraffe-who-wandered-off-in-texas-found-safe-for-real-this-time-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/764549\/","title":{"rendered":"Gracie the giraffe who wandered off in Texas found safe \u2013 for real this time | Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The search for a giraffe who absconded<\/a> from a private game ranch in rural Texas and effectively went missing for nearly two weeks was found safe on Friday just a few miles away from the homestead, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

An aerial search ultimately pinpointed the whereabouts of Gracie \u201cthe w[a]ndering giraffe\u201d, said Nathan Johnson, the Real county sheriff, in a Facebook post announcing the success of efforts to find the creature.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s post punctuated a saga that began on 12 June when Gracie wandered out of her enclosure at the Cedar Hollow Ranch in Leakey, a town of about 700 residents that is a two-hour drive west of San Antonio.<\/p>\n

News of a reticulated giraffe that is native to several countries in eastern Africa managing to somehow vanish in the Texas<\/a> hill country region spread wide and far on the internet. And Johnson\u2019s office appealed in a news release for citizens to keep their eye out for Gracie, going so far as to list her distinguishing features lest anyone confuse her with any other animals in the area.<\/p>\n

Vick Jones, the Cedar Hollow Ranch manager, put up a $5,000 reward for information reuniting the site with Gracie \u2013 and he hired helicopters as well as drones to aid search efforts for the giraffe, San Antonio\u2019s CBS News affiliate KENS<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Searchers\u2019 hopes were falsely raised late on Tuesday when, as the Guardian reported, the website for San Antonio\u2019s NBC affiliate WOAI published a story that Gracie had been found safe.<\/p>\n

But Johnson subsequently said that report was inaccurate. \u201cThe giraffe has not been located,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s still at large.\u201d<\/p>\n

The local station then backed away from the inaccurate story, saying the original report \u201ccouldn\u2019t be confirmed\u201d. Johnson blamed the confusion over Gracie\u2019s whereabouts at the time on misinformation sowed by \u201cidiots in their pajamas in their mother\u2019s basement on the internet with nothing else to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was shortly before 10 on Friday morning in Leakey when Johnson published a genuine post informing his community that aerial search efforts from Jones and Jeff Hill of Concho Aviation had paid off by finding Gracie.<\/p>\n

The giraffe was about four miles (6.4km) to the south of Cedar Hollow Ranch, said Johnson, who attached overhead pictures of Gracie nestled among some shrubs on spartan terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Jones has contacted his veterinarian and is putting a team together to safely capture Gracie and bring her home,\u201d Johnson\u2019s post said.<\/p>\n

According to the outlet, Johnson told WOAI<\/a> that Gracie was \u201cfat and happy\u201d when found and had a \u201ccatch me if you can, suckers,\u201d attitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The search for a giraffe who absconded from a private game ranch in rural Texas and effectively went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-764549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}