A nonprofit animal rights group will ask Nye County permission to install signs warning drivers about burros on a Pahrump road at a public hearing on Dec. 1. Donkeys of Pahrump says a sanctuary for donkeys has drawn wild burros to the area, leading to one getting hit and killed by a car.
A law passed by Congress in 1971 is very strict about how humans can interact with wild burros, forbidding attempts to injure, kill, or harass the animals. Federal regulations also restrict feeding and other interactions. Even rescuing or treating an injured burro usually requires BLM authorization.
It’s not uncommon to see burros outside Las Vegas, especially in Blue Diamond, Spring Mountain Ranch, and elsewhere in the Red Rock Canyon area. Burros are strongly tied to the identity of towns like Beatty (near Death Valley) and Oatman (an Arizona town southeast of Laughlin). Oatman shops sell hay cubes or pellets to visitors, who are strongly discouraged to feed the animals anything else. Another unofficial rule that everyone follows: burros have the right of way when on a road, regardless of how impatient a driver might be.
While burros are closely identified with the Southwest United States, they’re not native to our part of the world. Burros were brought to the Americas as pack animals by Spanish explorers in the 1500s, became especially useful during the mining boom, and were turned loose when operations wound down. Since then, burros have shown incredible resilience with an ability to survive in the Mojave Desert with limited access to food and water.
