Giraffe Almost Abducts Toddler From Car At Texas Wildlife Park

Giraffes are pretty low on the list of wild animals you need to worry about, but it’s safe to assume the parents of a toddler who was almost snatched out of a car during a visit to a safari park in Texas probably feel differently thanks to what transpired last week.

As I sincerely hope you know, giraffes are not native to the United States, but there are a number of zoos and wildlife attractions that allow visitors to get up close and personal with the towering beasts that hail from the savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa.

That includes the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, Texas (located approximately 90 minutes southwest of Dallas), which boasts a menagerie of exotic animals including rhinos, zebras, and giraffes, the last of which visitors are allowed to feed by hand if they encounter them while driving through the safari park.

The Fossil Rim website notes that giraffes are the only species that can get that particular treatment because they can’t really bite humans (the vast majority of their teeth are located at the back of their mouths, and the only chompers in the front are situated exclusively on their lower gums).

However, they can grab based on a video that was filmed when Jason Toten and his fiancée visited Fossil Rim with their two-year-old daughter Paisley on June 1st, which shows the toddler being momentarily lifted from her mom’s arms before it quickly dropped her back into the vehicle.

According to KWTX, Paisley was holding a bag filled with the pellets visitors can use to feed the animals when the giraffe attempted to chow down only to grab ahold of her shirt instead.

Her mom seemingly startled the attempted abductor by yelling “Hey!” when she realized what had happened, and Paisley was returned unharmed before stopping by the gift shop to get the stuffed giraffe her dad said she “deserved” for enduring the brief ordeal.