Burros

Dozens of wild horses and burros gathered from roaming herds in the western United States will be put up for adoption next weekend in Burbank. Run by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the adoptions reflect an effort to curb overpopulation and maintain ecological balance on public range lands in California and Nevada. Since the program began in 1973, it has placed more than 175,000 horses with private owners across the country.

Hot air balloons, blimps and human catapults will go into service beginning promptly at 6 a.m. Saturday to transport people over the Sepulveda Pass during the closure of the 405. Reservations can be made online, and all major credit cards will be accepted. Afraid of flying? Not to worry. Burro pack teams will embark from stations on both Ventura and Sunset boulevards, with discounts for those who travel two per donkey. Meanwhile, crisis counseling centers will be established by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, with psychologists, personal transit planners and life coaches on hand.

The National Park Service's program to remove alive "every last wild burro" from 2-million-acre Death Valley National Monument has been essentially completed with the capture of more than 6,000 burros. Today is the deadline set four years ago for capturing the animals and putting them up for adoption. To make sure wild burros do not return to Death Valley, Park Service rangers beginning Wednesday are authorized to kill any stragglers they encounter while on patrol.

For years, Lia Grippo has taught outdoor activities to preschoolers, coaching them on the safest tree branches to climb and the sturdiest footholds on hills. So for Grippo, a steep slope at a Santa Barbara beach was a natural challenge for several young children in her care, including her two sons. But for state social services officials, the hill -- estimates of its height range from 85 to 125 feet -- was anything but child's play. Several weeks after alarmed spectators called police about three boys -- all barefoot and one naked -- climbing what they believed to be a dangerous slope, the state Department of Social Services suspended Grippo's home day-care license.

Worried about negative publicity that comes with allegations that some of its federally protected animals have wound up in slaughterhouses, the Bureau of Land Management's "Adopt-a-Horse or Burro Program" has indefinitely postponed an appearance at Pierce College. The adoption program, designed to find homes for roughly 42,000 wild horses and burros roaming in the western United States, canceled its plans to be at the college Oct.

Sugar, the beloved burro who was rescued from the wild through a federal program and adopted by Centennial Farm at the Orange County Fairgrounds, gave birth Friday to a fuzzy white foal. Already able to stand on shaky legs, the newborn nestled with her mother, delighting school children visiting the farm. "I think she cares about the baby," said Shelby Jones, 5, of Anaheim. "They were cute." Janet Kim, 5, of Westminster added: "It's pretty, it's like a lamb."

Five people were charged Wednesday in the killing of more than 40 wild horses and burros in north-central Nevada in a continuing federal investigation into the deaths of at least 10 times as many animals. The five, all ranch workers, are charged with violating the Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act, a misdemeanor that could result in one year in prison and a fine of $2,000 for each conviction, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Will Mattly.

A fuzzy white burro, nameless since her birth Oct. 17 at the Orange County Fairgrounds, will be called Cookie--fitting considering her mother's name is Sugar. In an effort to find a name, Centennial Farm staff members enlisted the help of Davis Elementary School, adjacent to the fairgrounds on Arlington Drive. Students debated such names as Sprinkles, Roxy, Casper, Thunder, Midnight, Lucy and Lulu.

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.

In the two years that Mark and Amy Meyers have run the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue at their modest Acton ranch, they've had to put up with every manner of jackass joke. Their relatives think they've lost it, and on some nights their kids can't sleep for the braying. Their yard smells, to put it delicately, of donkeys.

In a case that could cast suspicion on lawn ornaments everywhere, authorities say they have busted a drug ring that used concrete donkey statues to smuggle $1.5 million worth of marijuana into the Los Angeles area. At least 15 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme to ship 1,800 pounds of pot in 200 concrete burros, which were discovered last month in a shipping container at the Port of Long Beach.

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.

Hundreds of wild horses and burros that have been slated for roundup at a national wildlife refuge along the Nevada-Oregon line will continue to roam free, at least for now, to the relief of horse advocates and the dismay of some other environmentalists and wildlife officials. After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service canceled a planned roundup in July under pressure from horse advocates and a congressman, horse groups applauded.

Chandler, Ariz. Opening Dec. 15: After 35 years in Scottsdale, the Old West theme town of Rawhide is moving to Wild Horse Pass, a Gila River Indian Community development just south of Phoenix. (The area already is home to Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort.) A replica of an 1880s frontier town, Rawhide claims to be "more excitin' than a bronco in a beehive," with cowboys, rides (burro, camel, mechanical bull, stagecoach), rock-climbing, gold panning, shopping and dining.

If you ask Epifanio Flores, his burro isn't a beast of burden. It's just a burden. "They eat 10 times what a cow eats and they are nothing but trouble," the peasant farmer said as he took some shade in the baking central plaza of this agricultural town in the southern part of Durango state. He is among the thousands of Mexican farmers scratching out a living amid mesquite and cactus who have switched from the once-indispensable burros to pickup trucks and tractors to do their farm work.

To truly appreciate the legacy of Jesus Hernandez and Jorge the stuffed donkey, one must begin with the fortune-telling canaries. Therein lies the tale of a show-biz savvy Mexican immigrant -- the "burro man" of Olvera Street -- whose donkey and photo stand created an institution of L.A. tourist kitsch with a panache worthy of P.T. Barnum.

They are revered as majestic, galloping icons of the American West -- or reviled as starving, disfigured varmints that rob ranchers of their livelihood. Wild horses and burros are again stirring emotional debate from Western rangelands to the halls of Congress after 41 horses were slaughtered legally in April for the first time since the federal government outlawed the practice in 1971. The ban was repealed in December.

Donkeys don't like to do much of anything, let alone run a marathon. But they've been doing it in Colorado for years and they'll be back at it this summer. Pack burro racing has become an annual spectacle in a handful of old Colorado mining towns; there is actually a minicircuit of sorts. Racers and their fans pack Fairplay, Leadville and Buena Vista for the races that are cornerstone events for summer festivals. Many come for the novelty, but the races aren't for the faint of heart.