Our Desert Adventure... wild burros of the Sonoran Desert.

Trish and I recently enjoyed a week of hiking and exploring Arizona, particularly the Sonoran Desert.

When I was on a solo hike in the 23,000-acre swath of public land at Lake Pleasant north of Phoenix, I kept hearing a loud braying sound coming from the far side of a cactus-covered hill. I had heard that wild burros lived in the area, so I kept an eye on the ridge at the top of the hill, and one of the creatures soon appeared. As it stared back at me from high above, I took some photos.

The "wild" burros are awesome, and I was thrilled to see them. These burros are rather famous creatures in Arizona. But I think it's important that we understand exactly what they are and where they came from (the same can be said for "wild" horses).

First of all, the word "wild" usually refers to native animals. Wild burros (and horses) are not native to North America. Yeah, I know horses evolved here millions of years ago, But—after some of them migrated to Eurasia over the Bering Land Bridge—they went extinct here along with much of the other megafauna 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Burros, on the other hand, evolved originally in Africa. So, these "wild" burros are actually "feral" burros (and the same could be said for "wild" horses, which are descended from escaped domesticated horses brought here by Spanish explorers in the 1500s). The word "feral" refers to domesticated animals that have returned to the wild (after escaping or being released). The word "invasive" refers to non-native wild animals (not domesticated) that are now living where they don't belong and are doing environmental damage to the place they currently live.

So are wild burros (and horses) invasive? They do actually damage the environments where they live, particularly when they get overpopulated (trampling, soil erosion, fouling the water, and competition with native wildlife).

But this is where things get tricky. You see, people happen to LIKE burros (and horses). We think they're cute, beautiful, or whatever. This makes a big difference because activists form organizations to protect these particular feral species, even though the creatures are actually damaging to the environment. Near Lake Pleasant, there is a 103,000-acre area called the Lake Pleasant Herd Management Area. Yes, biologists regularly cull the herd to keep the burros from getting too overpopulated, but they still allow them to live there. Why? Because people like the burros.

I doubt you'll find a lot of people campaigning to save the feral Burmese pythons in Florida.

Oh... the amazing power of cuteness!

Where did the wild burros come from in the first place? This species originated in Africa. As with horses, domesticated burros were introduced to the Desert Southwest of the US by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Many of the burros in Arizona are descendants of a group of burros brought by Jesuit priest Padre Eusebion Kino to a Spanish mission near Tucson. Burros were heavily used by prospectors as pack animals during the gold rush all the way through the 1800s. Obviously, some burros escaped or were released. And because they are well adapted to desert conditions, they formed breeding populations that still thrive today.

Unlike horses, wild burros do not display band or herd behavior. Instead, individual males (jacks) establish territories around a water source, and the only stable groups are females (jennies) and their foals. This is because of the scarcity of water, both in their native African habitat and in the desert southwest US. In areas where there is a lot of water, burros form larger harem groups, as horses do.

There you go... more burro facts than you ever wanted to know!