Burros at RTF’s San Luis Obispo, Calif., satellite sanctuary: Cathy Wallace
The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments until Wednesday, Jan. 21, about its plan to capture and remove hundreds of wild burros from the range.
The burros live on the Lake Pleasant Herd Management Area (HMA), located in the Sonoran Desert about 30 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, Ariz. The rugged, 103,000-acre HMA is made up of federal, state and private land.
As of March 2025, the BLM’s population estimate for Lake Pleasant stood at 1,258 burros.
The BLM’s goal is to reduce the number of burros to within a newly revised Appropriate Management Level (AML), or target range, of 140-250 burros. Prior to a recent planning document revision, the range was 166-208.
By comparison, the BLM allows up to the annual equivalent of 673 cow-calf pairs to graze on allotments located within, or that partially overlap, the Herd Management Area. The privately owned livestock are overwhelmingly cattle along with a handful of horses.
To download the BLM’s planning documents, click here.
To submit a public comment, click here.
Please note: The BLM is in the process of migrating to a new eplanning website. As of the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan. 20, the ability to download the Environmental Assessment was not functioning properly.
Things to consider for your comments:
- We recommend combining any removal of burros with the implementation of fertility control, not waiting for a target population number to be reached before beginning a fertility control program. We strongly recommend that management actions include immediate implementation of fertility control alongside any roundups occurring within the HMA, even if AML is not achieved.
- If burros are to be captured and removed, we strongly recommend that the BLM focus primarily on the use of water and bait trapping for gathering the highly tractable, human-tolerant Lake Pleasant wild burros, rather than helicopters.
- If burros are to be removed, strict adherence to the BLM’s Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (the BLM’s humane handling guidelines), and appropriate BLM oversight of contractors, is essential. Congress has emphasized CAWP in its guiding language for appropriations.