A Rockbridge County judge has ordered the manager of the Natural Bridge Zoo to turn over two missing baby giraffes by Oct. 29 or face 100 days in jail.
In the course of the civil proceedings that led to that ruling Wednesday, it was also revealed that a grand jury has been empaneled to hear testimony in a possible criminal case regarding the zoo and the Mogensen family that has operated it. Michelle Welch, the senior assistant attorney general who is leading the state’s investigation, referred to this as a “multijurisdictional grand jury,” but the attorney general’s office declined to provide further information.
It had been previously revealed that the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares has opened a criminal investigation that involves multiple lines of inquiry: whether the zoo owners mistreated animals at the zoo, the fate of the missing baby giraffes, and whether drugs that zoo workers administered to one of the adult giraffes were responsible for killing it. The empaneling of a grand jury would suggest that investigation has now moved to a new stage.
Wednesday’s hearing — separate from that criminal inquiry — came 21 months after the attorney general’s office initiated a raid on the roadside zoo in Rockbridge County in December 2023 after an undercover investigation into reports of animal abuse. That raid saw the state seize 96 animals — and lay legal claim to four giraffes that were deemed too big to move. After a trial in March 2024, a Rockbridge County jury ruled that the state was right to seize 71 of the animals and ordered the remaining 29 returned to the zoo.
Among the 71 animals that the jury ruled were now state property were the four giraffes that remained at the zoo. The details of how and when to move animals that are up to 18 feet tall and weigh up to a ton (or more, in the case of the lone male giraffe) set off more court proceedings — and out-of-court conflict. One giraffe was moved in October 2024, but subsequent court testimony showed it was hard for the state to find people qualified to move the remaining giraffes because of threats from the Mogensens. (In July 2025, Rockbridge County Circuit Judge Christopher Russell found former zoo owner Karl Mogensen and his daughter, Gretchen Mogensen, who now runs the facility, guilty of impeding attempts to move the animals and sentenced both to suspended jail time, along with a fine.)
Three giraffes remained at the zoo through the winter. By then, two of the females were pregnant and were estimated to be due in spring 2025. The attorney general’s office ordered the Mogensens to notify them if the giraffes gave birth and conducted unannounced inspections of the giraffes in October 2024, December 2024 and February 2025. When the attorney general’s inspection team arrived in April 2025, it was temporarily turned away because Gretchen Mogensen informed them by text that she was unavailable. (Her lawyers said Wednesday she was at a doctor’s appointment.) Investigator Amy Taylor testified Wednesday that Mogensen also said the court order didn’t apply to her. When Taylor and her fellow inspectors (a state police officer and a veterinarian) finally gained admittance the next day, they determined that the two giraffes were no longer pregnant — and found what appeared to be afterbirth on one of the giraffes’ tails.
That led to two contempt of court charges that were before the court Wednesday, as well as a criminal inquiry.
Gretchen Mogensen’s attorneys, Tony Anderson and John Lichtenstein, argued Wednesday that they were unable to properly defend their client on the contempt charges because if she testified in her own defense, she’d put herself at risk of incriminating herself in the ongoing criminal investigation — which they said they understood had now reached the grand jury stage.
Russell dismissed attempts to delay or strike the contempt charges, saying that defendants often face “difficult” choices. The only witness to testify was the attorney general’s investigator, who described how Mogensen put off the inspection visit until the next day and only agreed to allow investigators in after she spoke with her attorneys. Lichtenstein argued that Mogensen was simply unavailable on the day investigators arrived and, while there was a delay, it didn’t constitute contempt.
The judge disagreed. He found Mogensen in contempt and fined her $1,000.
The judge also found her in contempt for not notifying the state about the birth of the giraffes or revealing where the calves are now. For that, he sentenced her to 100 days in jail — unless the calves are returned by noon on Oct. 29.
Mogensen’s attorneys argued that there was no evidence that she had taken the giraffe babies. The judge said he wasn’t ruling that she had — but that she’s the zoo manager and is ultimately responsible.
About the adult giraffes
Three of the four adult giraffes were moved to the Georgia Safari Park. The fourth died in transit in May and the circumstances surrounding its demise are part of the attorney general’s criminal probe.
A preliminary necropsy by the University of Georgia ruled out stress from the move, according to the attorney general’s office. A toxicology test, conducted by Michigan State University, is focusing on a drug that the attorney general’s office says Mogensen administered to the animal before it was moved.
The results of those tests have not yet been delivered to the attorney general’s office, a spokesman for the office said Wednesday.
Read more here about that animal’s death.
In making his ruling, Russell settled a legal point that had been in contention: Who actually owns the baby giraffes? Lichtenstein argued that the judge’s original order made no mention of giraffe offspring, just the adults: “There were no calves in existence at the time of the ruling.”
Welch cited an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held that the offspring of animals belong to whoever owns the animals: “The babies were inside the pregnant giraffes and now they’re gone.”
The ownership of those giraffe calves involved both legal and financial stakes. From a legal point of view, Mogensen can’t be subject to any criminal prosecution over the fate of those baby giraffes if they actually belong to the zoo and not the state. From a financial point of view, giraffes are valuable property. Court records say that adult giraffes are worth as much as $250,000 apiece, and state records show that over the years, the zoo has done a steady business breeding and presumably selling giraffes. In the 10 years prior to the state’s raid, state records show that the Natural Bridge Zoo shipped out 14 baby giraffes — some as young as 2 weeks old, none older than 2 months.
Unless a higher court intervenes, Wednesday’s ruling sets the clock ticking toward an Oct. 29 deadline for Mogensen to produce the two missing giraffes or report to jail. By then the two giraffes — if still alive — would be about 7 months old. Giraffes are about 6 feet tall when they’re born and, according to the A-Z Animals website, can double in height in their first year.