{"id":352436,"date":"2026-06-27T06:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/352436\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T06:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:52:10","slug":"getting-runaway-giraffe-home-safely-will-be-a-tall-order-texas-sheriff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/352436\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting runaway giraffe home safely will be a tall order: Texas sheriff"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NewsNation<\/a>) \u2014 A Texas sheriff is explaining how Gracie the runaway giraffe<\/a> was tracked down this week and says the hard part comes next: Getting her home safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t just load a giraffe into your car and drive her home,\u201d Real County Sheriff Nathan T. Johnson told \u201cThe Hill\u201d<\/a> on Friday. \u201cEven though she\u2019s only about four or five miles from her home by the way the eagle flies, there\u2019s a whole lot of rough terrain between here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 3-year-old Gracie escaped<\/a> her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in Leakey, located within Texas Hill Country, earlier this month, setting off a highly publicized search.<\/p>\n

How many giraffe species are in Africa? New scientific analysis quadruples the count <\/a><\/p>\n

Johnson said foliage and Gracie\u2019s \u201cnatural camouflage from the Good Lord\u201d helped conceal the animal as she roamed.<\/p>\n

But the giraffe was located this week with the aid of a game camera and aircraft. The animal was on private property with natural food sources, said Jones, who described the 1,200-pound Gracie as \u201cfat and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just on a little fling, and we\u2019re happy that we at least located her. Now, we\u2019ve got to get her home safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Gracie\u2019s owner is making arrangements to sedate the animal and load her into a special trailer that will transport her under the supervision of veterinarians. Johnson said he\u2019s optimistic things will end well.<\/p>\n

The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the nation. Johnson told The Associated Press the mild climate and rugged terrain serves as a good stand-in for most of the animals\u2019 native African environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had wildebeests, I\u2019ve had water buffalo, I\u2019ve had monkeys, I\u2019ve had zebras, all go missing,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(NewsNation) \u2014 A Texas sheriff is explaining how Gracie the runaway giraffe was tracked down this week and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[125539,20455,27,29,2165,28],"class_list":["post-352436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-nathan-t-johnson","tag-real-county","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-hill-country","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}