By STERRY BUTCHER

PRESIDIO COUNTY - Two Parks and Wildlife officials have been cleared of animal cruelty allegations in the shooting deaths of 71 feral burros at Big Bend Ranch State Park.

According to a Parks and Wildlife Internal Affairs report released this week, Regional Park Superintendent Mike Hill, of Fort Davis, and Deputy Director of Parks Dan Sholly killed the animals over a 12-month period beginning in October 2006.

“Dan Sholly and Mike Hill did not violate the animal cruelty criminal statute or any other criminal statute regarding the shooting of burros at Big Bend Ranch State Park,” the report states. “All burros were killed as quickly as possible, and not intentionally left to linger, die slowly, or made to suffer in any way.”

The burros of Big Bend Ranch State Park are wild and hardy, but they’re a non-native species that compete for water and forage with native mule deer and pronghorn. They also reside in rugged and remote habitat that’s desired for the eventual re-introduction of desert bighorn. Several hundred burros are thought to live in and around the park’s 300,000 acres. Unlike the herd of Longhorn cattle that is managed by the park, the burros disregard fences and move freely across both sides of the Rio Grande. Burros can live to be 45 or older.

“For over a decade, the agency’s policy has been to remove feral animals because they’re extremely destructive,” said Parks and Wildlife Deputy Director of Operations, Scott Boruff. He’s the designated spokesman for the agency on the feral burro issue.

Past roundups of burros proved ineffective, he said, and shooting them by qualified personnel is in accordance with a 1975 Sierra Club policy on feral burro management.

“Animals like hogs and burros and aoudads are hurtful to the environment,” Boruff said. “We have a policy that when the opportunity arises, we should try to remove those animals by means that are humane.”

Hill and Sholly were carrying out that policy when the Big Bend Ranch burros, and six aoudad, were shot, he said.

No one ordered the men to begin shooting the burros, according to Boruff. Both Hill and Sholly are certified by Parks and Wildlife in the humane disposal of feral animals. They were frequently at Big Bend Ranch to help staff implement a new public use plan.

“As we sent more staff there to support the local staff, there were opportunities that burros were seen and shot,” said Boruff. “It’s not something that someone planned.”

Regardless of the agency’s long-standing policy, there are aspects of the burro shootings that are unsettling. Burros are more appealing and likeable than feral hogs and more familiar than the exotic aoudad sheep. While they are non-native, burros have been present in the Big Bend and northern Chihuahua for centuries. The agency’s feral burro policy, while it’s been on the books for years, is not widely known by the public. The revelation that burros – 71 of them – were shot in the park and their carcasses left to decay is shocking to many.

A series of depositions was taken in the course of the internal investigation. Again and again, the employees of Big Bend Ranch talk about their own dismay at the shootings.

“I feel bad about the burros being killed,” park employee Raul Martinez told investigators. “I think they are beautiful. I think they are an attraction for the people that visit the park….The person that shoots a burro in the park does not have a heart. I do not understand why someone would shoot a burro in the park.”

Big Bend Ranch employee Samuel Marquez told investigators, “It made me feel sorry that the burros had been shot. It made me sad. The burros were not hurting anything….There are other ways of removing them from the property without shooting them.”

And from Antonio Manriquez: “Everywhere I go, the employees are talking about the burros being shot. The employees are very upset about it. They don’t like just shooting the animals and leaving them to lie. They say it is just not right, even though it is an animal. Everybody believes they, whoever ‘they’ are, are trying to eradicate the burros by shooting them….I am a wildlife biologist. I do not believe in wasting anything; shooting something and leave it lying. It is inhumane to do this. This also brings down morale of the employees. You are working trying to do a good job for the department and then someone comes in and just shoots something to kill it.”

Hill and Sholly, in their depositions, state that the shooting was not recreational. Both men have marksmanship experience.

“We never deliberately went out to hunt the burros,” Hill said in the report. “We started it because of the bighorn sheep plan for restocking at the park. We needed to get the competitors out and burros are a competitor.

“We also saw the need to get the burros out before the new public use plan goes into effect at the park and public use increases,” he said later in the report. “We were trying to do what needs to be done quietly, without attracting attention.”

He acknowledged that it occasionally took more than one shot to kill an animal, but asserted that they took care to dispatch wounded animals.

“I do not like it much that we have to shoot the burros,” he went on. “There is no fun in it. It is slaughter….It is not the burros’ fault that they are here. It is the people’s fault for not rounding them up.”

The quietness that Hill references is among the complaints Big Bend Ranch former employees have expressed.

Luis Armendariz was the park manager until his retirement November 30. He learned of dead burros in the park in mid-summer and, because he did not at first know the shooters were Parks officials, Armendariz ordered an investigation that led to the internal affairs investigation.

Hill states in the report that he’d told Armendariz and another staffer about killing the burros; when he told them is not clear. More and better communication was in order, according to the findings of the internal report.

“State Park personnel do have the authority to control exotic and nuisance animals within Park property,” it states. Park managers are the personnel to implement and direct staff in the control of feral and nuisance animals.  

Notification of a coordinated effort should be made to local and regional Parks and law enforcement, according to the report. No notification was made in the burro case, “although some general discussions occurred between the Wildlife Division and State Parks.”

Some follow up memos were also not forwarded to the correct Parks and Wildlife offices.

Armendariz claims that his investigation and displeasure over the burro killings led his superiors to reassign him – after 35 years on the job – to a new position in Fort Davis. Instead of taking the new job, he retired.

Robert Garcia is the peace officer Armendariz ordered to investigate the dead animals. He retired on December 9 in protest of the burro issue.

“I knew they’d try to cover it up,” he snapped when he learned that Hill and Sholly were exonerated. “It’s a cover up because initially they didn’t tell the park manager what they were doing. Secondly, by eliminating [Armendariz] as my supervisor, they eliminated my point of contact and my enforcement powers.”

He’s fuming mad. Despite the report’s findings, Garcia said some animals suffered – that foals were orphaned, and that some burros seemed to have been shot in the belly or hip without a kill shot.

“I get mad that these animals were killed inhumanely,” he said. “Why didn’t they give them away? Why did they have to shoot them? And why keep it hush-hush? Being a peace officer, I think I should be notified they’d be doing that.”

Boruff adamantly denies that any Big Bend Ranch employees were reassigned because of the burro issue. Some staff members were resistant, he said, to changes necessary to implement the new public use plan.

“My belief is that Sholly and Hill did this in the course of other business out there consistent with the policy that had been outlined in the State Parks division – and some staff out there didn’t like the policy,” he asserted. “It’s my belief that the individuals that were asked to be relocated were because of management issues, not because of anything that has to do with the burros.”

“No effort was made to hide the information that we took the opportunity to shoot the burros,” he said. “Did everyone hear about it? They may not have. Was there an effort to cover up that we shot burros? Absolutely not.”

A reprieve exists, for the time being, for the burros of Big Bend Ranch. Boruff ordered a moratorium on shooting the animals in October. It will stay in effect for some time; Boruff announced that public input will be sought on the agency’s feral animal policy both online and at public hearings, dates for which have not been set.

Some of the animals will be removed for adoption – at least that’s the hope. The country’s largest burro rescue outfit, Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue of Tehachapi, California, was forwarded this paper’s first story on the burro extermination nearly 500 times by readers. Now they’re involved.

“We’ll meet with Mike Hill on January 14 to go over the park,” said Mark Meyers, of Peaceful Valley. “We capture and remove wild burros where they’re under the threat of being shot or losing habitat.”

Peaceful Valley is a non-profit and will basically underwrite the rescue process, he said. It will take months to habituate the burros to humans, bait them with alfalfa, pen them, and haul the animals to a site in Miles, Texas to be gentled and eventually adopted out.

Meyers has heard of the extreme ruggedness of Big Bend Ranch’s terrain, which has stymied the park’s one or two past attempts at round ups.

“It’s a massive undertaking,” he said, and volunteers and contributions would be helpful. “We’ll have to raise private donations. It costs us about $750 for every burro we take out of the wild; it’s expensive work. If by the end of 2008 I can 100 out of the park, that’s doing good. We would like to see this as a Texas project and for Texans to help us with this.”

Boruff added that anyone else with a plan or ideas for burro removal is encouraged to contact Parks and Wildlife.

On Tuesday, Armendariz, the former park manager, was working a field of alfalfa with his tractor. He remains steadfast in his belief that the removal of feral burros in Big Bend Ranch State Park was mishandled.

“What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong,” he said. “There’s better ways of doing things. If they think it’s right what they did, that’s their prerogative. I still say it’s wrong and I bet there are people who agree with me.”