Keep Your Eyes Peeled for Gracie, a Reticulated Giraffe on the Loose in Texas
The tall creature escaped from a private ranch this month, and she’s been roaming the Texas Hill Country ever since
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A giraffe is on the loose in Texas.
The creature’s name is Gracie, and she escaped from a ranch in Real County, Texas, about 100 miles northwest of San Antonio.
In May, Gracie came to live at Cedar Hollow Ranch, a private facility that breeds, raises and sells exotic animals. But she escaped this month. Now, the ranch is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to her capture and safe return.
Vick Jones, the ranch’s manager, says Gracie is between 3 and 4 years old and stands 10 to 11 feet tall. She’s a reticulated giraffe, a species native to Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia featuring distinctive geometric patterns on their coats.
The giraffe vanished nearly two weeks ago after meandering into a corner of the ranch located in a canyon. That area is enclosed by an eight-foot-tall gate and a tall rock slab, yet, somehow, Gracie managed to flee.
“It found a way outside of the high game fence, and after that it’s been on a fling, just enjoying the more rugged parts of Real County,” Nathan Johnson, the county sheriff, tells KENS-TV’s Mike Jimenez.
Did you know? Signature spots
Each reticulated giraffe has its own unique coat pattern, similar to human fingerprints.
According to Jones, Gracie is a bit of a wanderer. “This giraffe, like none of the others ever did, she would walk around … [and] eat on the tree limbs that was up there,” he tells the New York Times’ Alexandra E. Petri.
After Gracie vanished, Jones used helicopters to look for her over an area spanning roughly 7,500 acres, but those searches were unsuccessful. He heard about one promising Gracie sighting a few miles from the ranch, but by the time he got there, the giraffe was nowhere to be found.
Gracie was last seen on a game camera near the town of Leakey. Based on that clue, she hasn’t made it very far—roughly three miles from her last known location on Cedar Hollow Ranch, per KXAS-TV’s Frank Heinz.
Jones wants Gracie back, but he isn’t necessarily concerned about her safety or wellbeing while she's away. He tells KXAS-TV he suspects she’ll have no trouble with any animals she encounters, and she’ll find plenty of vegetation to munch on.
“There’s a lot of food out there for her to eat,” he tells MySA’s Mia Valdez. “There’s plenty of water.”
Cedar Hollow Ranch has had giraffes for more than three decades, per the Times. Beyond giraffes, it has numerous other animals in its care, including Nubian ibexes, impalas and antelope, per KXAS-TV.
The facility is located in Hill Country, a region in central and southern Texas with hilly grasslands that has a high concentration of exotic animals from Africa in captivity. The abundance can probably be explained by the area’s rugged terrain and a mild climate, which is somewhat similar to the creatures’ native habitat, Johnson tells KXAS-TV.
Occasionally, however, those far-from-home animals escape or go missing. “I’ve had wildebeests, I’ve had water buffalo, I’ve had monkeys, I’ve had zebras,” Johnson says. “Sometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don’t.”
Despite those past experiences, Johnson tells KENS-TV he “chuckled” when he got the call about Gracie because “it’s my first missing giraffe case.”
While the search for Gracie continues, some onlookers are having a bit of fun with the story, with help from artificial intelligence, reports Natassia Paloma for the El Paso Times. They’re posting doctored images showing Gracie in various places, such as exploring the historic San Elizario district or working as a firefighter for the Uvalde Volunteer Fire Department.
Gracie is not the only giraffe to make headlines this month. Last week, officials in Virginia announced the safe recovery of two giraffe calves that had been missing for more than a year.
The juveniles had disappeared from Natural Bridge Zoo, located about 200 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., in 2025. Authorities did not provide many details about the incident, sharing only that “legal action” following an “extensive investigation” led to their return. The animals have been transferred to a professional facility specializing in giraffe care where they are “receiving proper medical and behavioral support,” according to the announcement.
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