A giraffe named Gracie escaped in Texas. No one can seem to find her

A giraffe named Gracie is missing in Texas, and the search for her has become a tall order.

Gracie, who is about 3 years old, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, said Vic Jones, who owns the remote property about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of San Antonio. He said Wednesday that Gracie had wandered into a part of the privately owned preserve that other giraffes previously avoided.

Jones said he has sent up helicopters to look for Gracie, a few sightings have trickled in, and a $5,000 reward is on the table.

But the giraffe, which stands roughly the height of a tree, hasn’t turned up.

鈥淪he wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other giraffes had ever gone on before,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淎nd when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate.鈥�

The ranch is in rural Real County, where its roughly 2,700 residents were put on alert to be on the lookout for a missing giraffe. Jones said the search area is extremely remote, and the likelihood of Gracie encountering any humans is low.

鈥淧eople are not in danger of her because she鈥檚 not around people,鈥� Jones said. ‘She鈥檚 out in very, very rough, heavily wooded lands.”

The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seems to serve as a good stand-in for most of the animals’ native African environments.

He rattled off a list of animals that have gone missing over the years, especially after floods, but said this was his first giraffe.

鈥淚鈥檝e had wildebeests, I’ve had water buffalo, I’ve had monkeys, I鈥檝e had zebras, all go missing,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淪ometimes we recover them, and sometimes we don鈥檛.鈥�

While the middle of Texas is not a giraffe’s native environment, Jones said Gracie should be able to find plenty of leaves and other vegetation to eat. He said other animals were not likely to bother her.

Jones said he initially had helicopters searching an area of about 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) with no luck. A few days later, there was a report that Gracie was spotted to the south.

But by the time they could search the area, Jones said, she was already gone.

鈥淲e’re always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough,鈥� Jones said.

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