BIG BEAR CITY — Sure they're cute, adding a quaint ambience to the rustic communities that surround this mountain lake. Maybe they're not as sweet as a bunch of Bambies, but they're less threatening than the local black bears.
So for a long time, everyone enjoyed the wild, free-roaming descendants of the burros left behind decades ago by gold prospectors which, over time, learned they could head into town for some easy eats.
But now, more than 100 burros are virtually domesticated, and their idea of migrating these days is to move from one yard to another--dumping trash cans, tramping gardens, gnawing on wood house trim and, in mating season, braying into the night to the consternation of many local residents.
Worse still, these furry animals are meandering out onto the local highways and being struck by vehicles or--in some cases--running into the sides of unsuspecting motorists' cars.
Since 1989, an average of a dozen burros have been killed annually by vehicles here; last year, 22 were killed.
Finally, in a decision that is being hailed by some--and bemoaned by others--the U.S. Forest Service announced this week that it will capture the neighborhood burros and relocate them to a burro-adoption ranch at Ridgecrest, operated by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
The issue, said Forest Service wildlife biologist Robin Butler, was one of the most controversial to face authorities in recent years, pitting residents who simply adored the cute donkeys against those who feared for the animals'--and people's--safety and saw them as nuisances who had overstayed their welcome.
"Whenever my phone rings at 2 in the morning, I figure that someone struck a burro--and I brace for the day that someone will be killed" in such an accident, Butler said.
Even benign neighborhood grazing through trash cans can become deadly. "One burro ate a plastic bag out of a garbage can, suffocated and keeled right over on a woman's front porch," Butler said. Others harm themselves by digesting toxic garbage or cutting themselves on tin cans and glass. And local ranchers contend that the burros pass viruses on to livestock.
The Forest Service tried to relocate the troublesome burros 10 miles out of town, in a territory where they are protected by the federal Wild Horses and Burros Protection Act of 1971.
