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Status of the feral burro (Equus asinus) in Trans-Pecos Texas.

Article Excerpt
Abstract. -- The feral burro (Equus asinus) occurs across much of the rugged landscapes of the western United States. Recent sightings in Brewster and Presidio counties of Trans-Pecos Texas indicate that free-ranging populations are now locally established in parts of the Big Bend region of Texas. A brief historical perspective of E. asinus in the state is provided along with a discussion of possible ecological implications of its presence. Given the potentially negative impact of E. asinus on livestock and resident big game species, it is proposed that a detailed assessment of distribution and population numbers in west Texas is presently warranted.

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The feral burro (Equus asinus) is native to the "broken, undulating, stony desert country" of North Africa and the Middle East (Nowak 1999). Domesticated about 6,000 years ago, its durability and endurance as a draft and pack animal led to its use on every continent except Antarctica. Spanish explorers first introduced the burro to the Americas in the sixteenth century, where the species soon became an integral and necessary commodity. The development of mechanized transportation rendered the burro obsolete in the United States by the earliest 1900s, after which time released and escaped animals quickly became established in several western states, mostly on the extensive tracts of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) properties and other federal lands (Jenkins & Ashley 2003).

Free-ranging populations readily adapted to parts of the desert southwest (notably Arizona, Nevada, and southern California), and have proliferated under the protection of the Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. However, E. asinus seems to have escaped the notice of regional faunal surveys in Texas over the past century (Bailey 1905; Blair 1940; Borell & Bryant 1942; Davis 1944; Taylor & Davis 1947; Davis 1978; Davis & Schmidly 1994; Stangl et al. 1994; Goetze 1998; Schmidly 1977, 2002, 2004).

Findley (1978) indicated that a single population occurs in Lincoln County of central New Mexico, but Jenkins & Ashley (2003) do not map Texas as within the known distribution of the feral burro. In fact, the first literature record of the feral burro in Texas of which the authors are aware is Yancey's (1997) observation of a solitary burro sighting...

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