A giraffe named Gracie who went missing from a game ranch in Texas was recovered safely after being spotted during an aerial search.
Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said on social media that the 3-year-old giraffe was found around 7:30 a.m. Friday.
She was found about 4 miles south of her home at the Cedar Hollow Ranch in Leakey, 90 miles northwest of San Antonio, the sheriff said.
Ranch manager Vic Jones told San Antonio’s WOAI-TV that the helicopter search was launched after a trail camera spotted Gracie southwest of the ranch.
Dr. Pat O’Neil, a veterinarian who helped transfer Gracie to the Cedar Hollow Ranch in May and helped with her recovery, told Austin’s KVUE that “out of the helicopter, she’s remotely darted. It takes about three minutes for the medicine to take effect. … She fell gently on a safe, good spot. When she’s wide awake, of course, she doesn’t know where she’s at, and we have to guide her with about eight people to keep her under control.”
Sheriff Johnson told the Houston Chronicle that, at the time she was found and recaptured, Gracie “appeared to be fat and happy.”
The giraffe went missing two weeks prior to her recovery after climbing up rocks and bypassing an enclosure fence. Mr. Jones said, “Now that I know she can go up there and will go up there, that 200-foot stretch will have a fence put on it.”
