The fur is flying over the fate of San Bernardino County’s wild burros. The largest county in the United States has been home to herds of wild burros since the 19th century, when domesticated donkeys were released by their former owners. To keep the wild population under control, in 2019 and again in 2023, San Bernardino County has contracted with Riverside’s nonprofit DonkeyLand, which operates a 2,000-acre wildlife preserve for wild burros and abused domesticated donkeys. According to county officials, however, DonkeyLand doesn’t have the capacity to take in all of the burros the county needs to relocate. DonkeyLand disputes the county’s claim, but the county has now contracted with the Texas-based nonprofit Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, which says it has more than 5.5 million acres of wild donkey habitat across 53 locations. Wild burros stand on a hillside in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Wild burros graze in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. The burros live wild and move back and forth between Box Springs Mountain, Reche Canyon and San Timoteo Canyon. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) A wild burro stands in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Wild burros gather in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) A wild burros naps in Box Spring Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) A wild burro gets close in Box Spring Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) A wild burro in rests in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) A wild burros stands in Box Spring Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Wild burros stand in packs along in Box Spring Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. The burros live wild and move back and forth between Box Springs Mountain, Reche Canyon and San Timoteo Canyon. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Wild burros gather in packs in Box Spring Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. The burros live wild and move back and forth between Box Springs Mountain, Reche Canyon and San Timoteo Canyon. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Wild burros gather in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. The burros live wild and move back and forth between Box Springs Mountain, Reche Canyon and San Timoteo Canyon. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Show Caption1 of 11Wild burros stand on a hillside in Box Springs Mountain Reserve near Moreno Valley on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Expand “Our preference would be to have a contract with a local nonprofit rescue and sanctuary organization that has the capacity to rescue and shelter an adequate number of the undomesticated burros that roam freely in the Reche and San Timoteo canyon areas,” Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe said at the Wednesday, Dec. 18 meeting of the county Board of Supervisors. Reche Canyon stretches roughly from Colton to Moreno Valley. San Timoteo Canyon stretches from Beaumont to Loma Linda. “Countless burros are suffering and dying after wandering onto roadways and railroad tracks and after injuring themselves after encountering man-made objects,” Rowe said. “Burros on Reche Canyon Road and San Timoteo Canyon Road endanger not only their own lives but the lives of the people traveling on those roads. “No one in this room wants to see that suffering continue,” she said. DonkeyLand turned down three new contract offers, according to county spokesperson David Wert. The Riverside preserve “has stated to us that they lack the capacity to provide sanctuary to no more than a small fraction of the burros that need to be removed from the wild for their safety and the safety of our residents,” Rowe said at the meeting. Sign up for The Localist, our daily email newsletter with handpicked stories relevant to where you live. Subscribe here. According to a staff report created for the Board of Supervisors before Wednesday’s meeting, “DonkeyLand has been unresponsive to calls regarding injured burros, leaving animals to suffer after tragic incidents involving vehicles or trains. When asked to accept 100 donkeys into their sanctuary in November 2024, DonkeyLand agreed to take only 32 donkeys over a three-week period.” DonkeyLand did not respond to requests for comment for this story. DonkeyLand and county officials disagree about whether there’s enough room for wild burros to be kept locally. In a Facebook post Wednesday evening, DonkeyLand said county public health and animal control officials toured the property on Dec. 10. “We expressed our desire to continue to relocate the wild burros that are sick, injured, (have) special needs, (and) fragile elder burros and those in harms way to DonkeyLand,” the nonprofit’s board of directors wrote. DonkeyLand officials explained the property, of which 500 acres is fenced, can provide a home to 1,000 wild burros. Currently, the board said, the site is home to 450 burros. “The county knows first hand that we are capable of housing another 550 permanent residents,” the board continued in its post Wednesday. “It is unclear why they have expressed publicly that we are at capacity and yet they brought us several herds on December 12th, 2024.” According to Wert, DonkeyLand officials never told the county they had the capacity for an additional 550 burros. “And they apparently do not have the operational capability to accept more than a few at a time,” Wert wrote in an email on Friday. According to Wert, DonkeyLand indicated it could accommodate up to 100 burros, but not all at once, preferring relocations spread over several months. Between Nov. 20 and Dec. 12, at taxpayers’ expense, the county transferred a total of 32 burros to DonkeyLand, according to Wert. As of Tuesday, Dec. 17, at no cost to the public, Peaceful Valley rounded up and began caring for another 68 burros. Peaceful Valley is expected to transfer up to 200 burros in the next few weeks, according to Wert. “Every burro that remains in the wild because DonkeyLand is not equipped to accept it is a burro that may wander into traffic or onto train tracks,” he said. In 2021, six were donkeys killed when a train hit them in San Timoteo Canyon near Redlands. According to Rowe, Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue is “the only organization that has presented a viable program to humanely reduce the local burro population and that has agreed to contract with the county as required by Senate Bill 371.” The 2023 bill, authored by state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Yucaipa, allows counties to partner with nonprofit groups to care for, remove and relocate burros. Related Articles Local News | Here’s where burrowing owls have disappeared in California Local News | Monarch butterflies to be listed as a threatened species in US Local News | Here are the latest species counts for California’s gray wolf packs Local News | Mountain lion rescued from tree after fleeing beagle in OC Local News | 43 monkeys escape from South Carolina medical lab. Police say there is ‘almost no danger’ to public Over the next few weeks, Peaceful Valley plans to use alfalfa as bait to get the donkeys used to the rescue’s wranglers before they’re trapped. The burros will then be examined and cared for by veterinarians before being relocated to permanent refuges or privately adopted. Animals that are ruled too wild or aggressive to be adopted will be sent to Peaceful Valley sanctuaries in Arizona or Texas. “We are not happy that this will likely result in our burros being relocated to other states. But our contract guarantees that our burros will be well-cared for, treated humanely, and live out their natural lives in a safe environment,” Rowe said at the Wednesday board meeting. “We respect and value the ideals to which DonkeyLand claims to aspire. We hope that DonkeyLand acquires the capacity and the will to work with the county to address this issue,” she said. “But for now, the county will do what is necessary to mitigate the suffering, mitigate the danger, and ensure our wild burros have an opportunity to live their best lives.” The DonkeyLand statement accused Rowe of “misleading her constituents and the public in general” and having a “propensity for falsehoods.” According to DonkeyLand’s statement, they are in the process of fencing in another 871 acres, creating room for another 2,642 donkeys and burros. But the Board of Directors also believes it’s necessary to have free-roaming wild burros to keep brush under control and prevent wildfires in the San Timoteo and Reche canyons. Wert said wild donkeys aren’t a reliable source of wildfire fuel reduction, citing California Department of Forestry and insurance company guidelines. Peaceful Valley has repeatedly dealt with pushback organized on social media, the executive director, Mark S. Meyers, wrote in a commentary published by the Redlands Community News in July, after the county pumped the brakes on a contract with the nonprofit that was to have started on June 1. “We anticipated capturing 200 donkeys in the first few weeks of the project bringing immediate relief to the neighborhoods and the roadways,” Meyers’ commentary reads in part. “But then the social media warriors got involved with another misinformation campaign and the county got cold feet.” The same thing happened in 2009, according to Meyers, when Peaceful Valley was working with a federal agency to reduce the local donkey herd by half. At the time, that was about 200 donkeys. “We were shut down by well intentioned but misinformed people,” Meyers wrote. “What resulted was uncontrolled herd growth, disease including equine influenza, traffic accidents, trains killing donkeys and a human fatality as well.” Donkey herds double in size about every four years, according to Meyers, with the herd straddling the San Bernardino and Riverside county lines now numbering between 600 and 1,000 donkeys. “The majority of people love (the donkeys) and others do want them gone,” the DonkeyLand statement on Facebook concluded, “but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this and it’s definitely not right the way it is being done. Lives are at stake, families will be torn apart, it’s heartbreaking.” More on wild burros in the Inland Empire Burro deaths causing residents concern in Reche Canyon Bob Barker of ‘The Price is Right’ donates to burro rescue Donkeyland ‘The Price is Right’ for burro rescue’s new land Famed game show host Bob Barker again helps Inland Empire burro rescue DonkeyLand Wild burro dies after being shot with arrow near Moreno Valley Wild burros in the Inland Empire — and problems they cause — are the focus of a new state law