Alicia Silverstone Teams Up with PETA to Offer $50,000 Reward for Tips That Help Find Missing Baby Giraffes

For Immediate Release:
November 19, 2025

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Actor, bestselling author, and longtime PETA pal Alicia Silverstone is joining PETA in offering an up to $50,000 reward for information leading to the location of two baby giraffes removed from the Natural Bridge Zoo, after the facility’s manager Gretchen Mogensen recently chose to start serving 100 days in jail rather than comply with a court order to disclose the animals’ whereabouts. The giraffe calves are believed to have been taken from their mothers—who were found by a judge and a jury to have been cruelly treated and whose custody was awarded to the government—shortly after they were born. Anyone with information should contact the Virginia Office of the Attorney General’s Animal Law Unit at 804-786-2071.

“Tearing babies away from their distraught mothers is devastating for both, no matter what species they are,” says Silverstone. “These missing babies need specialized care, and every day counts in finding them, so I hope someone with information about their whereabouts will come forward now.”

The disappearance of the baby giraffes—who were discovered missing by state inspectors in April—is the latest disturbing development in an ongoing legal saga involving alleged animal neglect and abuse at the Natural Bridge Zoo. In 2023, authorities from the attorney general’s office executed a search warrant at the roadside zoo and seized nearly 100 animals after finding animals kept in filth, sick animals denied veterinary care, and dozens of dead animal bodies and parts—including legs, a head, skin, tails, and frozen bags of feces, all from giraffes.

Two of the four giraffes who were seized (in place) by the state were pregnant. The attorney general’s office ordered the roadside zoo to notify them when the babies were born—but the facility’s operators failed to do so. According to public documents, the Natural Bridge Zoo has a history of prematurely separating baby giraffes from their mothers, with the roadside zoo shipping out at least 14 baby giraffes in the 10 years prior to the state’s seizure. Giraffe calves typically nurse for up to a year or longer and remain closely bonded with their mothers well beyond weaning, relying on them for protection and vital early-life learning within their family herd.

PETA notes that the Mogensen family’s previous exhibitor’s license for Natural Bridge Zoo had been suspended on at least three occasions, and the roadside zoo has racked up a long list of federal Animal Welfare Act violations over the last several years, including for bludgeoning animals to death as a method of “euthanasia”; failing to provide animals with veterinary care, food, and water; and failing to have direct control of an elephant.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.