Former rodeo rider and jockey Kim Terry has been around all sorts of animals his whole life, but it's the wild burros that have snorted and kicked their way into his heart. He loves their moxie, respects their survival skills and is smitten with what he calls their "fantastic personalities."
"Just don't get behind them," he advised recently as he prepared to flush a dozen or so from a holding pen.
Terry let rip with a sharp "heyaaaah!" and charged them, swinging a long blue stick. The burros stampeded into a narrow chute. He straddled the bars above them, struggling to fasten shiny red collars around their thick necks.
"Man, that's hard work," he said, sucking deeply for air. "That'll make you sweat."
Terry and a handful of Reche Canyon residents are trying to save the feral burros prowling the badlands of the rural enclave between bustling Colton and sprawling Moreno Valley.
The burros are California's only herd on private land. They arrived at least half a century ago, and state officials think there are about 50 within Reche Canyon. Terry believes as many as 400 others live in neighboring canyons and wander over.
They have become major hazards on increasingly busy Reche Canyon Road, a convenient shortcut between the two cities.
Animal control officers said there were 37 accidents involving burros between 2003 and 2006, with 17 of the small donkeys killed. A 21-year-old Rialto resident died when her car struck a burro in 2005.
"I saw her laying dead," Terry said. "A burro went right through their windshield. It was the most heartbreaking thing you can imagine."
Terry, 55, and Rhonda Leavitt, 50, are now putting reflective collars on the animals to make them easier to spot at night. Terry rounds them up while Leavitt makes the collars.
"I go to thrift stores to get my belts, then sew on this reflecting tape," she said recently as she sat in the back room of her hilltop house, carefully feeding belts through an old sewing machine. "I can make 10 or 15 in a couple hours."
Two notches on the sewing table mark how long a belt must be to fit a burro's neck. Style isn't a question.
"They don't care what they look like," she said. "And the belts reflect like you wouldn't believe."
Leavitt, who operates a water truck service, has started Reche Canyon Burro Support to raise money for hay, veterinary care and more corrals.
