Long Island police baffled by appearance of 12-foot wooden giraffe

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., June 8 (UPI) -- Police in New York are trying to find the owner of a 12-foot wooden giraffe found chained to a tree at the entrance to a nature trail.

The East Hampton Village Police said a pair of village workers discovered the wooden giraffe Wednesday morning with its legs duct taped to the ground and its torso chained to a tree at the entrance of the East Hampton Village Nature Trail.

"We were doing our morning patrol, we came around the corner and there was the giraffe standing in the nature trail. That's something you don't see every day," village employee Mike Bouker told News 12 Long Island.

East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen said there haven't been any reports of wooden giraffes going missing in the area. Investigators are looking into whether the giraffe was related to a senior class prank at a local high school.

"It's obviously stolen, but we don't know from where," Larsen told the East Hampton Star. "We're looking into it."

The giraffe statue is being kept at the East Hampton Village Highway Department impound lot, as it's too large for the village police department's impound lot.