Parker Live News from the Parker Strip since 2009.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Kingman and Lake Havasu field offices are seeking public input on an environmental assessment analyzing a proposed wild burro gather and use of fertility controls within and near the Black Mountain Herd Management Area (HMA). The area is located in western Mohave County.
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, according to BLM. Additionally, BLM says wild burros have wandered onto private lands outside the HMA seeking food and water, causing public safety impacts on area roadways as well as private property damage.
For these reasons, local communities have requested that the BLM address the wild burro overpopulation in the Black Mountains and return the HMA to its target population level.
“We are looking forward to receiving public input as we evaluate a variety of humane solutions to addressing the significant overpopulation of wild burros in and around the Black Mountain area,” said Kingman Field Manager Amanda Dodson. “Ultimately, the BLM’s primary goal is to achieve healthy public lands that can support healthy wild burro herds, wildlife, and other natural resources.”
But burro herd management has been controversial in the past, with disagreement among members of the public about how to manage herd sizes and populations.
Wild burros have no natural predators, resulting in rapid increases in population. Without management, herds can double in size every five years. BLM says that its management of burro populations keeps the burros in good physical condition and protects the health of public lands and native wildlife habitat.
The environmental assessment analyzes the use of fertility controls, sex ratio adjustments, and periodic removal of wild burros over a 10-year period to maintain the target population within the HMA. All action alternatives analyzed in the EA ensure humane treatment of the animals. Any wild burros removed from the range would be made available for adoption or sale to good homes through the BLM’s Adoption and Sales programs.
The BLM is requesting public comments on the EA and has made the document available for review and public comment on the BLM ePlanning website: https://go.usa.gov/xVatt and at the Kingman Field Office, 2755 Mission Blvd., Kingman, AZ 86401, 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The BLM is accepting substantive comments for 30 days, from March 2nd through April 1st, 2020. Only comments specific to the project will be considered. Comments should contain new technical or scientific information relevant to the proposed action. Comments containing only opinions or preferences will not receive a formal response but may be considered in the BLM’s decision-making process. Multiple comments containing the same information will be responded to once. Interested parties can also deliver or mail written comments to the Kingman Field Office. Before including your address, phone number, email address, or any other personal information in your comments, please be advised that your entire comment, including personal identifying information, may be made publicly available at any time. While individuals may request the BLM withhold personal identifying information from public view, the BLM cannot guarantee it will be able to do so.
Leave them alone…. so many are gone now from Parker, makes me so sad ???? not to see them anymore!!!
Leave them alone…
Take them. I don’t want to see anymore dead burros 🙁
Leave them alone!
Leaving them alone will cause their population to explode and decimate their habitat. That would not only kill off themselves, but kill off all other wildlife besides.
Slow down the speed on the California side, set up motion detection lights to warn driver’s of the burros crossing.
Yes please relocate, humans are part of the problem. Distressing to see them injured and dying on the roads instead of staying in their habitat away from humans. They are not pets, if you want to feed one please adopt!!!!
Barbecue!!!!
I lost my leg in an accident just down from the dam on the California side. It’s not all the donkeys fault it’s mostly caused by the idiots that feed them when they’re hanging around the street
Their land. But too many not good!
To the Slaughter house they will go.
Put some up for adoption. Or just Leave them alone.
Let them be adopted, relocate them, birth control, but do not euthanize them. They are gentle creatures.
There seems to be so few now! I say leave them alone
We say leave the herd as is, we live in Golden Valley, Az and rarely see them. There is so much open land in Mohave County and we need the wildlife not the thousands of homes. They wild burro, along with all the wild creatures here, are what makes this area charming and wonderful.
So please think carefully before you try and cull the herd to a mere 478 animals, try sterilization first if you must.
Thank you
The Hunsicker Family
Do some research number of burros compared to what the land will support there are to many
Diana Claxton then nature will take care of it.
Wonderful! Decrease the E. Coli
If you actually do the speed limit on the California side ( parker) you have time to avoid donkeys. LET EM BE THERE COOL AF
Love them! Except when you come around a bend, and there’s a half dozen or more parked in the road…. and they will not move… for love nor money….
Leave them alone! They’re so sweet!
Leave them alone. They were there first. Or if they have to be removed then put them up for adoption.
Love OUR WILD HORSES LOVE LIVE AN LET LIVE FREE WILD FREEDOM ALWAYS SHAME ON you BLM SHAME
Please leave them alone.
Those Burrows were here long before you and I were around the desert area. This is their land too. Do not euthanize or remove the Burrows… there are other ways to control them. Mankind is the one that is moving into their territory and ruining the desert by over developing. Wild animals in open desert land is what makes it so beautiful. Man over develops everything and then wants to move out the animals that have been there all along and destroy the natural beauty of the area. Control man and over development instead of messing with the animals that have been there and pushing them out ..
Did anybody read the article?
You just cannot leave them alone.
Way to many of them. We don’t want them to starve or die of thirst.
I live here in Golden Valley & theirs not to many…about 80 from rt.66 to rt68 they are Gentile souls. They dont bother me & they make small burros (Burritos) their harmless out this way
Put them to work
Maybe geld some males
Same as horse round up, very few are adopted to good homes. Major majority will be sold to kill buyers and taken to be slaughtered in Mexico. These are FACTS. I follow all the herds and am on a non profit board to protect a herd. The lies about BLM “management” are told over and over. Very few want the horses and burros gone. Slaughter advocates are pushing for this. Pocketing money. And your tax dollars pay for this corruption!
They want comments from the public but only technical or scientific comments. Do they think we are all wildlife biologists? The common mans input don’t count? Former, 31 year, BLM employee.
Put them in everyone’s backyard that wants the blm to leave them alone. Let them feed and water them.
Round some up and put them up for adoption to thin the herd. Like the mustang’s
Do not kill them.
Leave the burros alone! The BLM are NOT managing anything. They are destroying these animals and wild horses. BLM incompetence is astounding. You should be reining in cattle grazing and mineral extraction. Instead they attack wildlife as if they are the problem when they are not. BLM are not managing the lands. Animals like these spread seeds and reseed the lands cows do not. Cows turn everything into dust and shit. Leave these burros alone! If there are coyotes and mountain lions out there then they do have natural predators. But then BLM do pisss poor job of protecting those animals too. Same with forest service. Always protecting special interests instead of these very important lands and wildlife diversity. Leave them alone.
Please leave them be
BRING THEM TO IDAHO FOR US TO ADOPT. I AND SEVERAL OTHERS I KNOW WOULD LOVE AND CARE FOR THEM
The estimated wild burro population in the Black Mountain HMA is more than 2,200 — total bunk. BLM fabricates population numbers, they’ve been doing it for decades. Last time they tried to do an aerial count in this area they could only find 71 burros.
And people, this is about the burros living in the mtns between Oatman and Bullhead – not the Parker Strip.
I have read the EA and I believe that Alternative A would be the best option for everyone and everything involved. These burros need to be managed and with fertility control and sex ratios it would help keep gatherings to a minimum. I believe microchipping and freeze marking would assist in determining which wild burros would be considered nuisance burros and might need to be removed from the HMA. If we could maintain the herd size to what it should have been originally, 487 I believe, that would reduce the amount of wild burros and cattle wandering off their allotment in search of resources. It would reduce the stress on the foliage and water resources. As a citizen of Golden Valley and the ranchers daughter who runs cattle on the Mud Springs allotment I can personally attest that the wild burro population has gotten way out of hand. People who take the time to read the EA will realise that we are not proposing to remove all the burros, but simple manage their herd size for their safety and our own.
Gelding some males and possible adoption.
Tammie Cardella – actually, they weren’t there first. They were introduced to the area by miners searching for gold and silver. I don’t believe they are a native species. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Transplant them to areas that have high fire risk.
The assertion that wild donkeys and horses are “overpopulated” is absurd and false. These roundups serve one purpose, to clear OUR land in preparation for handing it over to corporate ranching, fossil fuel, mining, timber, water privatization and development interests. That land and those equines belong to US. The vast majority of US want our donkeys and horses to live unmolested on OUR land. Stop ignoring the will of the people and start doing the job we pay you to do.
First, BLM “asking” for public input is a sham. Their mind is already made up on how they are going to handle a situation and asking for opinions is just a legality. Second, letting BLM handle any animal is a huge mistake. Remember how they handled the desert turtles?
Blm figures with burros and horses gone there’s room for more cattle. We all know cattle don’t eat and trample available food supply.! They love wildlife so much they are killing off mountain goats so hunters have more sheep to kill. It’s all so political and insane.someone who actually cares about life outside an office needs to be in charge.
GETTERDONE!!!! THE DAMPED THINGS ARE STRIPPING OUR DESERT OF IT’S FOLLAGE!!!!
They don’t belong here gold miners brought them back in the day just let them run away when they left. They get killed they hurt people the damage the environment we should have more burro barbecues those were the days…
Leave them alone, slow down,if you don’t want to see wildlife move to LA.
Gilding is a possibility, maybe adoption ,but that’s as far as I think you should go . We have already lost so many. In the batter they have the blinking lights to warn the drivers of horses in the area you could do the same with These poor creature.
Neutering limited adoption I think that’s as far as you should go to reduce the herd. We are blah so Many. Blanking indicator signs to let the drivers know there are Free ranging animals in the area.
Open season
Love them. How can I adopt, birth control method would be best to control the numbers within the limits, but not to rid them all.
David Page Sr. Burritos for everyone!
Fertility control and adoption of offspring.
We have to kill them because the desert tortoises wouldn’t survive in the desert!
Love them!!
Dart them for population control. No answer is perfect here. Don’t send them to foreign countries for any reason…that’s never been a humane solution!
Damn People have taken over.. Many more people than Burros. It was thier land long before it was yours
Humans have destroyed the Foliage/Earth.. Not Donkeys !!!