Gracie the giraffe who loves to wander found safe after search with community help

For almost two weeks, residents of a rural Texas county have been looking, mostly up, for a missing giraffe called Gracie that wandered off from a private game ranch.On Wednesday, it appeared the free-roaming mammal’s odyssey was over, after it was reportedly found safe a “little farther out than expected” from its hill country home.During the almost week and half she was missing, Gracie, a reticulated giraffe native to several eastern African countries, became something of a celebrity in the region around Cedar Hollow Ranch in Leakey, a town of about 700 residents a two-hour drive west of San Antonio.Word spread quickly on the internet, and the local sheriff’s office appealed in a news release for citizens to keep their eye out for the roving giraffe. It even provided a detail-heavy list of the animal’s distinguishing features in its “be on the lookout” advisory, presumably to avoid confusion with any wandering long-necked, non-native game animals people might encounter.“They gave a description, ‘Gracie has rounded ears’,” one observer posted on X. “So if you spot a giraffe out and about in the Texas hill country, check its ears first before calling it in. Wouldn’t want to flood the hotline with mistaken identity.”Vick Jones, the ranch’s manager, told the New York Times that Gracie was between three-and-a-half and four years old, and had wandered off into hilly grassland when she “came down on the wrong side of the gate” after reaching up to eat leaves from a tree.“This giraffe, like none of the others ever did, she would walk around,” he said.Jones put up a $5,000 reward, and hired helicopters and drones in the search, according to San Antonio’s CBS News affiliate KENS.Nathan Johnson, the sheriff of Real County, told the outlet he chuckled when he received his first missing giraffe report, but had taken the case seriously.“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,” he said.“We have mountain lions, we have other animals, a lot of coyotes, and there are predators out that can harm her, although she’s a big animal.”The happy, albeit vague news of Gracie’s safe return came late Tuesday in a short report posted to the website of another San Antonio news station.“The giraffe that disappeared from a ranch in Leakey has been found alive,” the report said, offering no details of the location or circumstances of the animal’s discovery other than it was a “little farther out than expected” from the ranch.The Guardian has contacted the Real County sheriff, and Cedar Hollow Ranch, for comment.