Officially? The policy on wild burros out here is shoot to kill.
Texas park rangers are trying to wipe out hundreds of free-roaming donkeys in Big Bend State Park, killing nearly 130 to date with .308-caliber bolt-action rifles on this side of the Rio Grande. But in the process, the shootings are stirring a whole new kind of cross-border controversy, pitting state officials against burro-lovers who believe the animal holds a special place in history and deserves protection.
Outraged locals, however, claim there's only one animal the state is really cares about — bighorn sheep.
"They say we're doing this just so four rich white guys can hunt bighorn sheep out here," said David Riskind, director of natural resources for the parks agency. "That's just not true."
Once extinct in Texas for decades, bighorns made a heralded homecoming to Big Bend last year when a herd of nearly four dozen was relocated to the 316,000-acre range. But even that's not big enough for what the state says are foreign burros and the native bighorns.
Skeptics suspect the state's stance is all a wink to wealthy and well-connected hunters. Coveted state permits to bag bighorns fetch upward of $100,000 at auction in Texas, and opponents like Margaret Farabee of the of the Wild Burro Protection League believe that's why the state wants to eliminate any threat to the sheep's survival so the bighorn hunters can one day return to Big Bend.
Riskind said it will take decades before the bighorn population is robust enough to possibly allow hunting in Big Bend, but that doesn't quiet the doubts of a growing campaign to save the burros — for a second time.
Among those trying to stop the shootings include a Wisconsin woman who's bombarded the state with open records requests; a former state park supervisor in Big Bend; and more than 94,000 supporters on Change.org, making it one of the website's most popular petitions ever.
But their biggest ally may be history. In 2007, a similar uproar caused the state to temporarily suspend its first foray into "lethal control" after parks rangers killed 71 wild burros.
Luis Armenderiz, the former Big Bend supervisor who retired following the initial controversy, said the burros are no more destructive to the park than humans who put in bike trails.
"We are invading their ecosystem. They're not invading ours," Armenderiz said.
Shooting wild animals doesn't generally create much of a stir in Texas, where hunting is a celebrated pastime. A year ago, Gov. Rick Perry famously paused from a morning jog to take aim at a coyote. This past summer, state lawmakers made gunning down feral hogs from helicopters legal.
No one sticks up for the ugly, rooting, beastly feral hog. So why the burro backlash?
"They're charismatic," Riskind said.
Opponents say the reasons are cultural. Donkeys did the dirty work of hauling supplies during America's westward expansion in the 1800s, and here along the border, families owned burros like households today have dogs. When the peso was weak, Mexican families strapped American-bought microwaves to their burro's backs to haul across the Rio Grande.
Even at Big Bend National Park, right next door to the state-owned land, killing wild burros is prohibited by a 40-year-old federal ban that Congress said protects the "living symbols and pioneer spirit of the West."
Riskind is quick to call burros "historically significant" and said the state tells the animal's important legacy through its books and museums. But he said those creatures were domesticated donkeys — and times have changed.
Heightened border security has made walking a donkey across the Rio Grande nearly impossible, and Mexico's violent drug war has decimated small towns in northern states and sent families fleeing inward. Riskind said many of the wild burros in Big Bend today were simply abandoned by Mexican ranchers.
The donkey dust-up is playing out in an isolated, rugged region that looks like a stock Texas landscape in some old western shoot-'em-up. Residents proudly call it the Lone Star State's last frontier, but attitudes here lean more progressive than small-town rustic.
An hour up the road is Marfa, the arty desert oasis where Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant played a surprise show last month. In nearby Alpine, ranchers who drive into town to buy hay bales and horse feed drive past two yoga studios. Rachael Waller, who runs an equine rescue in Alpine, hands out "burro-friendly store" stickers to shop owners and said nearly every business in town is on board, including the local taxidermist.
Waller, who is the daughter of Robert Waller, author of "The Bridges of Madison County," has a 7-year-old burro named Penny on her 40-acre ranch.
"We like going to Big Bend and seeing all the wildlife. It's all supposed to be there," she said.
Riskind described "lethal control" as a reluctant but necessary measure of last resort. Park rangers don't actively hunt for burros, and pull the trigger only when they stumble upon a herd. Conservancy groups tried trapping the burros in 2007 after the state backed down to protesters, but spent months without wrangling one donkey from the impossibly rocky terrain.
For now, Riskind doesn't see the state giving into opposition again.
"I think it's safe to say we're not re-evaluating," he said.
Texas is doing this just so they can bring back another type of hunting worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Congress has tried to stop them with no luck. Burros (A type of donkey.) Are thought to be endangered making killing them illegal. Here is some words from the petition.
Less than 300 wild burros remain but Texas Parks and Wildlife intends to kill these nationally protected burros to the "maximum extent possible". The national protections do not extend to this State-held land. What Texas is doing may be legal, but we think its an atrocity.
This horrid policy is carried out quietly, behind the scenes, with efforts to keep visitors to the Big Bend Ranch State Park from realizing wild burros are there and wild burros are being killed. We want the world to know how Texas chooses to kill their own living legacies of natural, cultural and historical heritage of their State, the region and America.
Only 5,800 wild burros are held in the protected areas managed by the BLM. Texas has their own small but vitally precious relic herd of wild burros, documented as laying claim to these lands as their ancestral home for hundreds of years. Officially, the Parks Department states that these wild donkeys harm the resource of the Park.
As evidence they provide ancient documents from 1974 and videos produced by the US China Lakes Naval Base where a 1981 court case revealed the base killed 648 wild burros illegally. In addition, Parks staff have stated on the record, that they needed to kill these wild burros to ensure that they could release restored "native" bighorn to the park.
The bighorn are a high profile species that are prized by big game hunters. Their restoration is heavily subsidized by private individuals who believe that the wild burro is an "enemy" of the bighorn. The hunting permits for the bighorn are sold in an auction format, with the highest recorded winning bid being $152,000.
Texas is killing wild burros to make way for hunting opportunities for wealthy hunters. The local community supports bighorn restoration, but not killing wild burros. Please help the community to stand up against these powerful forces that have refused to hear pleas to keep the wild burros, alive.
Because wasting bullets and time on an endangered species so rich ****s can hunt DEFINITELY isn't a waste of resources. I hate Rick Perry so ****ing much.
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“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
Because wasting bullets and time on an endangered species so rich ****s can hunt DEFINITELY isn't a waste of resources. I hate Rick Perry so ****ing much.
I do too bro.
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Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻) Follow me on twitter: @goanimals123
If there are too many burros, which it sounds like there are, it makes good sense to kill them. And even if there aren't a lot of the burros they aren't local and the bighorns are. For the record I also hate Rick Perry.
They are placing priority on the survival of the native bighorns. There are burros other places.
No, there aren't. And Bighorns aren't a native species. They're being introduced for the aforementioned rich ****s. Do a little research, please. And if you have to slaughter something, use a captive bolt-gun so it's painless.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
Actually there are only 300 burros. They are endangered. Not all donkeys. Just this specific type.
But your "wild burro" is really a domesticated burro that escaped into the wild. They are endangering natural wild life. They can not be endangered, because and endangered species has to be endangered in it natural habitat, which is not Texas. Now I hate Perry and I really hate red necks with guns, but your position is one that you can even defend.
Lets make it clear here. The first burros arrived in the new world in 1495, on board the old world ships. These burros where captive breed and domesticated. As it currently stands, do to the mismanagement of Texas's resources that caused the worst wildfires in states history, grazing lands are at an all time low. With the strain on resources it literally could mean the difference between natural and truly endangered species or escaped species. And you are placing more value on the escaped species over the natural species? If you want to complain about kill the coyote on a jog, I am all for. But to complain about killing an invasive species, I really have to say no.
No, there aren't. And Bighorns aren't a native species. They're being introduced for the aforementioned rich ****s. Do a little research, please. And if you have to slaughter something, use a captive bolt-gun so it's painless.
Yes they are. The desert big horn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) are a native species to the deserts of the south west. They where reintroduced after they where hunted to extinction in texas, but they where a native species until white man came around.
There is also less then 800 native big horn sheep in texas.
No, there aren't. And Bighorns aren't a native species. They're being introduced for the aforementioned rich ****s. Do a little research, please. And if you have to slaughter something, use a captive bolt-gun so it's painless.
If you did your own research, you should have found that they are native, in a way. They existed in Texas before becoming extinct in the area, and were reintroduced later with donations from other states. So while these were put in place by human actions, they were originally a native species.
Donkeys are non-native, though. I don't see the harm in such a small number, but I don't know how fast they reproduce, and am not fully informed on the impact they would have on the environment, so I can't take much of a stand on this issue. But if they reproduce rather slowly, I would favor capturing them and transporting them to the other states that do want them, rather than gunning them down from helicopters(which I actually almost never approve of).
Unofficially, the state of Texas celebrates donkeys and their historical and cultural significance in shaping the American West.
Officially? The policy on wild burros out here is shoot to kill.
Texas park rangers are trying to wipe out hundreds of free-roaming donkeys in Big Bend State Park, killing nearly 130 to date with .308-caliber bolt-action rifles on this side of the Rio Grande. But in the process, the shootings are stirring a whole new kind of cross-border controversy, pitting state officials against burro-lovers who believe the animal holds a special place in history and deserves protection.
Outraged locals, however, claim there's only one animal the state is really cares about — bighorn sheep.
"They say we're doing this just so four rich white guys can hunt bighorn sheep out here," said David Riskind, director of natural resources for the parks agency. "That's just not true."
Once extinct in Texas for decades, bighorns made a heralded homecoming to Big Bend last year when a herd of nearly four dozen was relocated to the 316,000-acre range. But even that's not big enough for what the state says are foreign burros and the native bighorns.
Skeptics suspect the state's stance is all a wink to wealthy and well-connected hunters. Coveted state permits to bag bighorns fetch upward of $100,000 at auction in Texas, and opponents like Margaret Farabee of the of the Wild Burro Protection League believe that's why the state wants to eliminate any threat to the sheep's survival so the bighorn hunters can one day return to Big Bend.
Riskind said it will take decades before the bighorn population is robust enough to possibly allow hunting in Big Bend, but that doesn't quiet the doubts of a growing campaign to save the burros — for a second time.
Among those trying to stop the shootings include a Wisconsin woman who's bombarded the state with open records requests; a former state park supervisor in Big Bend; and more than 94,000 supporters on Change.org, making it one of the website's most popular petitions ever.
But their biggest ally may be history. In 2007, a similar uproar caused the state to temporarily suspend its first foray into "lethal control" after parks rangers killed 71 wild burros.
Luis Armenderiz, the former Big Bend supervisor who retired following the initial controversy, said the burros are no more destructive to the park than humans who put in bike trails.
"We are invading their ecosystem. They're not invading ours," Armenderiz said.
Shooting wild animals doesn't generally create much of a stir in Texas, where hunting is a celebrated pastime. A year ago, Gov. Rick Perry famously paused from a morning jog to take aim at a coyote. This past summer, state lawmakers made gunning down feral hogs from helicopters legal.
No one sticks up for the ugly, rooting, beastly feral hog. So why the burro backlash?
"They're charismatic," Riskind said.
Opponents say the reasons are cultural. Donkeys did the dirty work of hauling supplies during America's westward expansion in the 1800s, and here along the border, families owned burros like households today have dogs. When the peso was weak, Mexican families strapped American-bought microwaves to their burro's backs to haul across the Rio Grande.
Even at Big Bend National Park, right next door to the state-owned land, killing wild burros is prohibited by a 40-year-old federal ban that Congress said protects the "living symbols and pioneer spirit of the West."
Riskind is quick to call burros "historically significant" and said the state tells the animal's important legacy through its books and museums. But he said those creatures were domesticated donkeys — and times have changed.
Heightened border security has made walking a donkey across the Rio Grande nearly impossible, and Mexico's violent drug war has decimated small towns in northern states and sent families fleeing inward. Riskind said many of the wild burros in Big Bend today were simply abandoned by Mexican ranchers.
The donkey dust-up is playing out in an isolated, rugged region that looks like a stock Texas landscape in some old western shoot-'em-up. Residents proudly call it the Lone Star State's last frontier, but attitudes here lean more progressive than small-town rustic.
An hour up the road is Marfa, the arty desert oasis where Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant played a surprise show last month. In nearby Alpine, ranchers who drive into town to buy hay bales and horse feed drive past two yoga studios. Rachael Waller, who runs an equine rescue in Alpine, hands out "burro-friendly store" stickers to shop owners and said nearly every business in town is on board, including the local taxidermist.
Waller, who is the daughter of Robert Waller, author of "The Bridges of Madison County," has a 7-year-old burro named Penny on her 40-acre ranch.
"We like going to Big Bend and seeing all the wildlife. It's all supposed to be there," she said.
Riskind described "lethal control" as a reluctant but necessary measure of last resort. Park rangers don't actively hunt for burros, and pull the trigger only when they stumble upon a herd. Conservancy groups tried trapping the burros in 2007 after the state backed down to protesters, but spent months without wrangling one donkey from the impossibly rocky terrain.
For now, Riskind doesn't see the state giving into opposition again.
"I think it's safe to say we're not re-evaluating," he said.
Texas is doing this just so they can bring back another type of hunting worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Congress has tried to stop them with no luck. Burros (A type of donkey.) Are thought to be endangered making killing them illegal. Here is some words from the petition.
Less than 300 wild burros remain but Texas Parks and Wildlife intends to kill these nationally protected burros to the "maximum extent possible". The national protections do not extend to this State-held land. What Texas is doing may be legal, but we think its an atrocity.
This horrid policy is carried out quietly, behind the scenes, with efforts to keep visitors to the Big Bend Ranch State Park from realizing wild burros are there and wild burros are being killed. We want the world to know how Texas chooses to kill their own living legacies of natural, cultural and historical heritage of their State, the region and America.
Only 5,800 wild burros are held in the protected areas managed by the BLM. Texas has their own small but vitally precious relic herd of wild burros, documented as laying claim to these lands as their ancestral home for hundreds of years. Officially, the Parks Department states that these wild donkeys harm the resource of the Park.
As evidence they provide ancient documents from 1974 and videos produced by the US China Lakes Naval Base where a 1981 court case revealed the base killed 648 wild burros illegally. In addition, Parks staff have stated on the record, that they needed to kill these wild burros to ensure that they could release restored "native" bighorn to the park.
The bighorn are a high profile species that are prized by big game hunters. Their restoration is heavily subsidized by private individuals who believe that the wild burro is an "enemy" of the bighorn. The hunting permits for the bighorn are sold in an auction format, with the highest recorded winning bid being $152,000.
Texas is killing wild burros to make way for hunting opportunities for wealthy hunters. The local community supports bighorn restoration, but not killing wild burros. Please help the community to stand up against these powerful forces that have refused to hear pleas to keep the wild burros, alive.
Please sign this petition
http://www.change.org/petitions/texas-stop-killing-wild-burros
It has 94,971 signatures so far but it needs 150,000.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻) Follow me on twitter: @goanimals123
“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
I do too bro.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻) Follow me on twitter: @goanimals123
Actually there are only 300 burros. They are endangered. Not all donkeys. Just this specific type.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻) Follow me on twitter: @goanimals123
They are placing priority on the survival of the native bighorns. There are burros other places.
No, there aren't. And Bighorns aren't a native species. They're being introduced for the aforementioned rich ****s. Do a little research, please. And if you have to slaughter something, use a captive bolt-gun so it's painless.
“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
But your "wild burro" is really a domesticated burro that escaped into the wild. They are endangering natural wild life. They can not be endangered, because and endangered species has to be endangered in it natural habitat, which is not Texas. Now I hate Perry and I really hate red necks with guns, but your position is one that you can even defend.
Lets make it clear here. The first burros arrived in the new world in 1495, on board the old world ships. These burros where captive breed and domesticated. As it currently stands, do to the mismanagement of Texas's resources that caused the worst wildfires in states history, grazing lands are at an all time low. With the strain on resources it literally could mean the difference between natural and truly endangered species or escaped species. And you are placing more value on the escaped species over the natural species? If you want to complain about kill the coyote on a jog, I am all for. But to complain about killing an invasive species, I really have to say no.
Yes they are. The desert big horn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) are a native species to the deserts of the south west. They where reintroduced after they where hunted to extinction in texas, but they where a native species until white man came around.
There is also less then 800 native big horn sheep in texas.
If you did your own research, you should have found that they are native, in a way. They existed in Texas before becoming extinct in the area, and were reintroduced later with donations from other states. So while these were put in place by human actions, they were originally a native species.
Donkeys are non-native, though. I don't see the harm in such a small number, but I don't know how fast they reproduce, and am not fully informed on the impact they would have on the environment, so I can't take much of a stand on this issue. But if they reproduce rather slowly, I would favor capturing them and transporting them to the other states that do want them, rather than gunning them down from helicopters(which I actually almost never approve of).