OATMAN — The burro gather is underway in the Black Mountain Herd Management Area with over 100 corralled during the first couple days of the operation.

The Bureau of Land Management began the gather this week, using the helicopter-assisted method. BLM Public Information Officer Dolores Garcia said the crews were able to gather 80 burros on Tuesday, and another 24 on Wednesday while working just south of Topock and in the area adjacent to the community. Garcia said the operation moved north of Topock, off the Oatman Highway on Thursday.

“Our overall goal for the gather is 1,000. We will be moving our gather site around to where some of the collective herds have been,” she said. “It has been going well so far.”

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Garcia said there have been some misconceptions about what will happen to the animals once they are gathered.

“These animals are being shipped out to our facilities so that they can be put up for adoption,” she said.

Some of the burro will be sent to the BLM facility in Florence, with the rest heading to a facility in Ridgecrest, California.

“They are basically equidistant to the gather location,” she said. “We will also be doing another gather in February closer to Phoenix where we will be taking some burros out of the landscape there. So we want to make sure we have the capacity at the Florence facility to hold the burros we will be gathering from the Lake Pleasant-Phoenix area.”

Garcia said she has also heard from people concerned that the BLM will be rounding up all of the burros and removing them from the Black Mountains all together — particularly from the Oatman area where the animals are popular with tourists. But she stressed that there will still be plenty of burros left afterwards — perhaps too many.

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Burros have almost no natural predators in the area, which can result in a rapid population increase if left unchecked. According to the BLM’s most recent survey of the Black Mountain Herd Management Area, there are 1,925 wild burros in the area.

“So taking 1,000 would still leave us above 900,” she said. “The appropriate management level for the Black Mountains is 478 — so we are still a little over what we would like to see for the stability of the landscape and habitat health for all wild animals. But we are making progress towards that with this gather.”

Although the burro gather is underway, Garcia said the BLM contracted the job for up to eight weeks of work. She said the plan is to keep working until they reach their target of 1,000 burros gathered.

“It is really just going to depend on the weather conditions, where the burros are at, our access to be able to set up a gather site and move the burros safely, and also keep our gather team safe. There is some rough and rugged terrain out here in the mountains south of Oatman, and in Oatman-area proper.”

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Garcia also reminds the public to use caution when driving in areas known for wild burros.

“When you know you are in an area that has wild burros, always take your time and keep is slow on the roads,” she said. “And do not feed wild animals – that includes the wild burros here in the area.”