Burro

For the gap in California, see Burro Pass.

A burro pulling a cart during the Carnival of Huejotzingo

In the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas, a burro is a small donkey. The largest burro populations in the hemisphere are found primarily in Latin America. In Mexico, the donkey population, estimated at three million, is among the largest of any nation in the world. There are also substantial burro populations in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

Etymology and terminology

Burro is the Spanish and Portuguese word for donkey. In Spanish, burros may also be called burro mexicano ('Mexican donkey'), burro criollo ('Criollo donkey'), or burro criollo mexicano. In the southwestern United States, "burro" is used as a loan word by English speakers to describe any small donkey used primarily as a pack animal, as well as to describe the feral donkeys that live in Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah, Texas and Nevada.

Characteristics

The burro is a small donkey. A study of working donkeys in central Mexico found a weight range of 50–186 kilograms (110–410 lb), with an average weight of 122 kg (269 lb) for males and 112 kg (247 lb) for females. Height at the withers varied from 87–120 cm (34–47 in), with an average of approximately 108 cm (43 in), and girth measurements ranged from 88–152 cm (35–60 in), with an average of about 120 cm (47 in). The average age of the burros in the study was 6.4 years; evaluated by their teeth, they ranged from 1 to 17 years old. They are gray in color.

Mexican burros tend to be smaller than their counterparts in the USA, which are both larger and more robust. To strengthen their bloodstock, in May 2005, the state of Jalisco imported 11 male and female donkeys from Kentucky.

History

Wild burros

The first donkeys came to the Americas on supply ships with the Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus, and were landed at Hispaniola in 1495. The first to reach North America may have been two animals taken to Mexico by Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico, in 1528, and who, in 1529, requested that more be sent in order to assist the native people, who had been branded and enslaved by the Conquistadores.

In the USA

File:TotallyFreeImages com-293219-Standard-preview.jpg

A burro train bringing gold from the mines near Ouray, Colorado

The first donkeys to reach what is now the United States may have crossed the Rio Grande with Juan de Oñate in April 1598. From that time on they spread northward, finding use in missions and mines. Donkeys were documented as present in what today is Arizona in 1679. By the Gold Rush years of the 19th century, the burro was the beast of burden of choice of early prospectors in the western United States. With the end of the placer mining boom, many of them escaped or were abandoned, and a feral population established itself.

State	Population
Arizona	4860
California	2946
Nevada	2641
Oregon	49
Utah	355
South Dakota	50
Total	10,871

See also

• List of donkey breeds
• Donkeys in North America
• Burro Racing
• Kleppe v. New Mexico
• Pub.L. 92–195

External links

• National Wild Horse and Burro Program, Bureau of Land Management, US Department of the Interior