The manager of the Natural Bridge Zoo was given the choice of telling the state what happened to two missing baby giraffes or serve 100 days in jail for contempt of court.
She chose jail.
Shortly before noon on Wednesday, Gretchen Mogensen arrived at the Rockbridge County jail and told a deputy: “I’m here to check myself in.” She handed over what appeared to be a small box of medications and was escorted away.
With that, the legal saga over the Natural Bridge Zoo entered a new phase. The giraffes, which a judge said last month belong to the state, remain missing — and a criminal investigation initiated by the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares is underway that includes a multi-jurisdictional grand jury that appears to be sitting in Rockbridge County. Based on prior statements by the attorney general’s office, that probe covers allegations of animal abuse at the zoo, the whereabouts of the missing baby giraffes and what kind of drugs were administered to one of the adult giraffes that died while the state was having it transported to a new home in Georgia. Earlier this month, a subpoena from Rockbridge County Circuit Court was issued for a witness in Wythe County, but the details are under seal.
The attorney general’s investigation began in 2023 and led to a raid in December that year in which authorities seized 96 animals from the roadside zoo in Rockbridge County and laid legal claim to four adult giraffes that were deemed too tall 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 at a hearing last month she was at a doctor’s appointment.) Investigator Amy Taylor testified last month 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. Since then, Mogensen hasn’t revealed what happened to the giraffe calves. The three remaining adult giraffes were eventually moved in May but one died en route to a new facility in Georgia.
The events of that April 2025 surprise inspection led to two contempt of court charges about Mogensen. At the Sept. 24 hearing, Russell fined her $1,000 for one charge and on the other, he gave her until noon Oct. 29 to reveal the whereabouts the baby giraffes or serve 100 days in jail. Mogensen’s attorneys asked the judge last week for a stay; he declined. They appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals, which declined Wednesday morning to intervene. Shortly after, Mogensen reported to jail.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on Mogensen’s decision to serve jail time and neither of her attorneys responded to requests for comment.
In years past, Karl Mogensen has described the zoo as a breeding operation and state documents show in the 10 years prior to the 2023 raid, the zoo had sold 14 baby giraffes — some as young as 2 weeks old, none older than 2 months. It’s unclear what the value of a baby giraffe is, but the Mogensens have asserted in court documents that the four adults were together worth $1 million.
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. If they were born in April, they’d be seven months old.