Vick Jones, ranch manager at Cedar Hollow Ranch near Leakey, confirmed to Chron that the nearly 4-year-old reticulated giraffe was spotted around 7:30 a.m. Friday during an aerial search.
Jones and pilot Jeff Hill of Concho Aviation took off around 6:45 a.m. to search an area they hadn’t flown the previous week. About 45 minutes later, Hill spotted Gracie roughly 4 miles south of Cedar Hollow Ranch, according to the Real County Sheriff’s Office.
“Jeff was here this morning, and we took off at 6:45,” Jones said. “Started flying the region that we had not flown last week, and at 7:30 he said, ‘Vick, I got her. I got her. She’s right here.'”
Gracie was standing about a half-mile from where the last known photos of her had been taken.
“She’s standing. She’s very calm. She looked good,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of water there, a lot of food, stuff like that. She’s looking good, doing good.”
The giraffe escaped from Cedar Hollow Ranch nearly two weeks ago after wandering into an area of the property where Jones said none of the ranch’s previous giraffes had ever gone. She came down a hillside on the wrong side of a gate and disappeared into the rugged terrain of Real County.
Her disappearance quickly became a national story after the Real County Sheriff’s Office asked the public for help. The search drew widespread attention, spawning coverage by national news outlets, memes, AI-generated images and false sightings as people across the country followed Gracie’s journey.
Now comes the challenge of bringing her home.
Jones said he has contacted veterinarian Dr. O’Neil of Fredericksburg, who is assembling a team to safely capture and transport Gracie back to the ranch.
Asked how it feels to finally locate her, Jones said the job isn’t finished. “It’s not over until she’s home,” he said. “It’s gonna be a chore to get her out of there. She’s in a very remote area. But we’ll get it done.”
“Once she’s standing in the pen and we take pictures of her standing in her enclosure, then we can call it done.”