The U.S. Bureau of Land Management next month will begin to remove 1,000 wild burros to address overpopulation and damage to the range in the Black Mountain Herd Management Area near Kingman and Oatman.
The removed animals will be put up for adoption, a BLM field manager told The Bee. Those not adopted would be kept in an off-range facility.
Following the completion of the gather, the BLM plans to conduct an aerial survey to determine the remaining number of animals to remove to reach the Appropriate Management Level (AML). The BLM will also use fertility control vaccine treatments and adjust sex ratios to reduce population growth to achieve and maintain AML.
The estimated wild burro population in the Black Mountain HMA is more than 2,200 — nearly four times greater than the target population of 478, creating impacts to landscape health and wildlife. In addition, wild burros that have wandered onto private lands outside the HMA seeking food and water have caused public safety impacts on area roadways as well as private property damage. For these reasons, local communities in Mohave County have requested that the BLM address the wild burro overpopulation in the Black Mountains and return the HMA to its target population level.
Those who wish to adopt one of the burros should go here for more information.
The burros are descendants of burros used in gold mines a century ago. When the mines closed, the workers turned the animals loose.
During the day, Oatman’s burros roam the streets, looking for handouts of alfalfa cubes, then wander into the nearby mountains or valleys at night to graze on foliage. The burros are a big part of Oatman’s tourism draw.
But the burros have no natural predators and can crowd out native sheep that roam the region and strip away the natural vegetation. The rising number of burros also caused more traffic accidents, including on Oatman Road (aka Route 66).
It got so bad, a few years ago a Mohave County official suggested a hunting season for the burros. The county board tabled the idea, and it apparently wasn’t revived. Such an idea also would have run afoul of federal law.
(Two wild burros in Oatman, Arizona, by Randy Heinitz via Flickr)
Considering the tens of millions of buffalo/bison that were killed, starting with killing for food when the North American transcontintenal railways were built, and then merely for sport by Caucasian ‘Americans’, and to deprive the aboriginal North Americans of their main meat supply, what are 1,000 donkeys? Since donkey meat is perfectly edible, why not make it a Route 66 delicacy? And, with donkey hides making serviceable leather, how about an Oatman shop selling “locally sourced leather handbags”?
You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. There’s uh, burro-kabobs, burro creole, burro gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple burro, lemon burro, coconut burro, pepper burro, burro soup, burro stew, burro salad, burro and potatoes, burro burger, burro sandwich…