On the afternoon of April 7, three people showed up at the Natural Bridge Zoo to conduct a random inspection of the giraffes that the state had seized last year, but which remained at the zoo until they could be moved.
There are many complications to moving a giraffe, but two of these three giraffes had a special one: They were pregnant, and moving a pregnant giraffe was deemed too dangerous. Even though a jury had ruled that the state could seize 71 animals from the zoo after it found the animals had been neglected and abused, it was agreed that pregnant giraffes should stay at the zoo until it was safe to move them. In the meantime, the court order directed the zoo to cooperate with the state and allow random inspections.
The inspection team that April afternoon consisted of an investigator for the state attorney general’s office, a veterinarian and a state police officer. The investigator spoke by phone with one of the zoo’s owners, Gretchen Mogensen, who said she was away but would be back about 5 or 5:30 p.m., according to an affidavit filed in Rockbridge County Circuit Court. When the investigator called back at that time, “Gretchen then said she would not be back until the next morning.”
The next morning, the investigator called Mogensen at 8 a.m. and asked to be admitted. Mogensen said she was busy and would not be at the zoo until 9:30 a.m. “I informed Gretchen that a court order required her to cooperate and she said the court order did not apply to her,” the investigator said in the affidavit. Mogensen did not explain her reasoning, but apparently she felt that since her parents had owned the zoo at the time of the court order, that order did not apply to her once ownership transferred.
At 9:32 a.m., the investigator called back. “Gretchen again refused, this time saying she was waiting to talk to her attorneys,” the affidavit says. “After waiting another hour, Gretchen finally allowed us to inspect the giraffes at 10:23 a.m.”
When the team finally saw the giraffes, they “immediately noticed” that the two pregnant females no longer appeared to be pregnant. “What appeared to be afterbirth that had dried” was on one giraffe’s tail. And there were no baby giraffes to be found.
Attorney General Miyares launched investigation that led to animals at the Natural Bridge Zoo being seized
In fall 2023, the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares conducted an investigation into reports of animal abuse and neglect at the roadside zoo. (Virginia is the only state whose attorney general’s office includes an animal law unit.) In December 2023, law enforcement raided the zoo and seized all the animals except for the giraffes because they were too big to transport. In March 2024, a Rockbridge County jury found that the state was right to seize 71 animals but that 29 others should be returned to the zoo because there was insufficient evidence of abuse to those creatures. After that, the only question seemed to be when and how the giraffes would be moved. One of them, a giraffe named Jeffrey, was moved in October to a facility in Georgia, about the time it was learned that two of the females were pregnant.
Since then the state has filed three motions to find Gretchen Mogensen, her father and stepmother in contempt of court for violating court orders, as well as a related motion against the head of an “animal activist organization” in Missouri that the state says has been deliberately obstructing the court’s order on behalf of the Mogensens. Those filings contend that the Mogensens and their allies have harassed, intimidated and threatened those involved with the case, including one instance where Karl Mogensen, the father and former zoo owner, threatened to shoot anyone who dared to move the giraffes. That prompted a state police investigation; the court filing says Karl Mogensen told state police he was only joking.
Those motions won’t be heard until July 2, and none of the attorneys representing the Mogensens have responded to inquiries by Cardinal News. The court filings also say some of those attorneys haven’t always responded to the state, either. This week, another of the giraffes was moved. Meanwhile, the baby giraffes remain unaccounted for, and a voluminous court file in the Rockbridge County Courthouse seems to suggest that the Mogensens might be preparing to argue that the giraffe offspring belong to them, an argument that might run counter to an 1889 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving calves born to runaway (and possibly stolen) cattle.
This is what those court filings show.
Court filings say former zoo owner threatened to shoot anyone who moved the giraffes
The documents filed in the Rockbridge County Courthouse say the trouble began in the summer of 2024, after the court had ruled in March that the state was right to seize most of the zoo’s animals but before there was a court hearing in October regarding the transport of the giraffes.
On Aug. 26, a lawyer for the state told Circuit Judge Christopher Russell that Karl Mogensen had been making unspecified threats to those typically involved in moving giraffes from one zoo to another. On Sept. 5, the court entered an order banning Mogenseon and his wife, Debbie, from having “any contact” with giraffe transporters until the giraffes had been moved out of the Natural Bridge Zoo that they once owned but later transferred to their children.
On Oct. 2, Russell held a hearing about allowing the state to move the giraffes and ruled that the transport could proceed. On that day, the court filing says, Karl Mogensen called one prominent giraffe transporter “and threatened to shoot him if he came on the property.” A state police special agent then went to interview Karl Mogenson to conduct a “threat assessment.” That agent’s report is included in the court filing. “Karl admitted to making the statement that he would shoot anyone that came on the property but said he did not mean that seriously and was not going to harm anyone,” the report says. “Karl said ‘I will not hurt anyone, I will shoot the vets. I am kidding with you, I never planned to hurt anyone.” Karl Mogensen said he called the giraffe transporters — the report is plural — “to scare them.” The special agent advised Karl and Debbie Mogensen to cooperate and “not to have any items that would resemble a weapon during the operation.”
The next day, a crew showed up at the zoo to move Jeffrey. The state police special agent’s report says that Debbie Mogensen “apologized for the statements made by Karl” and that others in the Mogensen family “were polite and cooperative and agreed to stand” where they were told, “agreeing not to make statements or noises to disrupt the operation.” Apparently, as a precaution, the state police did a “pat down search” of Karl Mogensen. Once that was completed, the state police told the attorney general’s team it was safe to enter the zoo and start moving a male giraffe named Jeffrey.
The filing says that despite her earlier “polite and cooperative” behavior, Gretchen Mogensen livestreamed the process for seven hours and “made inflammatory and false statements, encouraged harassment towards people she believed were involved and wished harm on members of the giraffe movement team.” At one point during the livestream, she is said to have referred to a giraffe expert from the Oakland Zoo who was involved: “Unfortunately, Amy Phelps did not get killed.”
“Gretchen also physically hindered the effort to move the giraffes,” the filing says, by placing a large rock in the center of the loading area. “The rock was large enough that it had to be moved by a forklift,” the filing says.
While Jeffrey the giraffe was being loaded, Karl Mogensen called the Rockbridge County sheriff, “asking the sheriff to run the giraffe trailer’s plates because he wanted to find out who the transporter was. Karl alleged that the transporter was ‘stealing’ his giraffes.” Rockbridge County Sheriff Steven Funkhouser (who has since retired) “did not comply with Karl’s illegal request and instead reported the request to the Attorney General’s Office,” the filing says.
According to the filing, Gretchen Mogensen urged her livestream listeners to document the license plate numbers of those involved in the transport. “Gretchen then became convinced” that one particular well-known giraffe transporter was involved. (The state says he wasn’t.) She then allegedly urged her listeners to “blow that M—–F—— phone up.” That man’s contact info was soon posted in the comments, and he received threats, the filing says.
One mover was identified — a man from Tennessee. That day, the man’s wife started receiving “harassing phone calls and text messages from an abundance of unknown people believed to be affiliated with an animal activist type of organization,” according to a report from the Wilson County, Tenn., Sheriff’s Office that was included in the filing.
That evening, between 4 p.m. and 7:40 p.m., while the Tennessee mover’s wife and children were away from home, someone broke into their home and trashed it. His wife returned home to find the door open and the house “ransacked.” The mover’s wife received “death threats all night,” and someone texted her husband, the mover, to tell him she was pretty and that the texter “knew she was at Walmart.” Unknown visitors showed up at her home; one asked to speak to her husband, another “drove up and down her driveway” and then messaged her about how long the driveway was. The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office report says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation “will be responding this afternoon and there will be a US Marshal coming to stay with her until her husband returns home.” The sheriff’s office also ordered extra patrols of her neighborhood for two weeks, “all three shifts,” according to the report.
The filing alleges that a Missouri-based animal group, Two by Two 4 U, was “directing this harassment and stalking” of the Tennessee woman and that “Gretchen’s [livestream] audience participated in harassing [the man’s] wife and bragged about it in the comments of Gretchen’s post.” Copies of many of those comments are included in the filing. The filing also says that Miyares’ office has sought and obtained “preservation orders” from Facebook to document many of the posts and messages that were made regarding the transport of Jeffrey.
The filing also says that “Gretchen admitted [on the livestream] to arranging for someone to stalk the transporter while he was moving the giraffe. … While the giraffe trailer was moving, there was at least one car who was identified as deliberately following the trailer.” After the giraffe was moved, Gretchen Mogensen “posted pictures of people involved in the transport asking ‘who can identify these people,’” and that, in separate posts, the CEO of Two by Two 4 U “congratulated her followers for their harassment and directed them at specific targets.” Among those were the Knoxville Zoo (because one of the veterinarians involved in the transfer used to work there), the Oakland Zoo (because the attorney general’s office has consulted the giraffe expert there) and the Georgia Safari Conservation Park (because that’s where the giraffe went). The filing says the “false attacks and threats” to the Georgia park have continued into 2025, and it includes examples, such as a post claiming that animals had escaped the Georgia park when none had.
On Feb. 27 of this year, the attorney general’s office filed three motions, asking that Karl Mogensen, Gretchen Mogensen and Sondra Scott of Two by Two 4 U be held in contempt of court — the Mogensens for allegedly violating court orders and Scott for allegedly obstructing those orders. Those are the motions that will be heard July 2.
State says it doesn’t know where the baby giraffes are, and zoo owners aren’t talking
After the April 7 inspection found that the two female giraffes were no longer pregnant, the state “asked Gretchen’s attorneys to inform them where the giraffe calves were but has not received a response.” In response, the state filed a second contempt of court motion against Gretchen Mogensen on April 17. That filing says the state “still does not know where the giraffe calves are hidden or why they were immediately separated from their mothers. Giraffe calves should stay with their mothers for approximately two years.” The website Fauna Faqs says that baby giraffes nurse from their mothers for about nine months to one year before starting to eat solid food. In a hearing last year, the state’s attorney told the court that “the Mogensens consistently separated … baby giraffes from their mother on the same day they’re born and only bottle raise them.”
On May 5, the state filed another motion, asking the court to impose temporary restrictions on the Mogensens and Scott while the case is pending. It said that the giraffes must be moved when temperatures are between 50 degrees and 80 degrees in the transport trailer, so this must be done during May. “Numerous partners who assisted [the state] in moving the male giraffe have been intimidated and harassed to such a degree that they are afraid to assist again,” the filing says. It listed 10 conditions the state wanted, including no livestreaming of the transfer; no posts about the transport for a month; no online posts showing home addresses, photos, places of work or license plates of “witnesses, rescue partners or transport team members;” “no encouraging harassment” of the transporters; and “no threatening physical violence or appearing at [transporters’] business or homes.”
The filing says it received “categorical refusals from Karl and Sondra’s attorneys and received no response from Gretchen’s attorneys.” There’s no indication that the court has acted on this request. The court file shows no response to any of these allegations other than routine filings from the attorneys attesting that they represent the parties involved.
This week, a crew of animal movers in bright orange T-shirts arrived at the Natural Bridge Zoo and moved one of the female giraffes, leaving two yet to be moved. The zoo livestreamed the event.
State says it owns the baby giraffes, but zoo owners’ attorney previously argued it doesn’t
The state’s April 17 contempt filing against Gretchen Mogensen — filed 10 days after the baby giraffes were discovered missing — makes a point of insisting that “the calves, like their mothers” are the property of the state and that “nothing in the Court Order allows any of the giraffes to be hidden away.”
Here’s a curiosity and a potential conflict: In the Oct. 2 hearing where the judge ruled that the giraffes could be moved, there was some discussion about who owned the then-unborn giraffes.
“The babies are now inside of those giraffes and when we seize them, Judge, I would say they belong to [the state],” said Michelle Welch, the attorney general’s animal law lawyer.
The lawyer representing Karl and Debbie Mogensen at that hearing appeared to disagree. “Your Honor, the [state] is assuming that they actually have seized properly the baby giraffes that are yet to be born. And I take issue with that, Your Honor, because that is not true.” The Mogensens’ lawyer attempted to talk about the Mogensens’ “commercial interest” in giraffe breeding, implying that they might own the unborn giraffes. The judge appeared to wave off discussion of who owned the unborn giraffes. “We’re not here to discuss lofty issues or like when life begins or anything like that,” the judge said. Instead, he said, “the only purpose of this hearing is” about the transport of the giraffes.
Welch countered that “we do have case law that stands for the proposition that the babies belong to us.” She cited an 1889 U.S. Supreme Court case involving cattle being driven to market that got separated from the rest of the herd during a snowstorm. They wound up on a ranch whose owner promptly sold the stray cattle and pocketed the proceeds. The original rancher eventually found out and sued. The court found for that first rancher. Most notably, it also ruled that the calves born of those runaway cattle belonged to the first rancher on the principle that “the brood of all tame and domestic animals belongs to the owner of the dam or mother.” (The standard legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence also contains a section that says that “the same rule is applicable to tame or reclaimed wild animals.”) The Mogensens’ lawyer then countered that “there’s not a lot of case law out about this.” The transcript of that hearing shows the judge never said anything more about the ownership of the future baby giraffes.
Everything you’ve read up until now is faithfully reported from the court filings. Now I must come to some speculation: If the Mogensens took the baby giraffes soon after birth — as the state said they were accustomed to doing — and still have the animals somewhere, are they preparing for a legal argument that they, and not the state, own those offspring?
Perhaps this case, tawdry in some of the details, will wind up adjudicating some “lofty issues” after all.
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