Burro Shortage
Correspondent:: König Prüß, GfbAEV
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:09:38 GMT
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washingtonpost.com
Mexico Up Against a Burro Deficit
Some Farmers Miss Their Jacks and Jennys
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page A01
TALA, Mexico -- Men with machetes still hack at tequila-producing agave
plants; corn stalks still sway in fields dotted with ancient stone
churches. But one element is missing from the timeless, picturesque
scene: There is not a burro in sight.
"There used to be 50 in every town. Now there is one, if that," said
Nicolas Vazquez Ortega, a ranch manager. "Before you used to see packs
of mules and donkeys in the fields when you were driving along the road.
Now they are disappearing."
Although it seems as improbable as Hawaii running out of pineapples or
France without Beaujolais, Mexico has a shortage of donkeys. As farmers
abandon the countryside for big cities, move to the United States or
shift to tractors and cargo trucks, burros -- long a backbone of Mexican
agriculture and a symbol of Mexican life -- have become increasingly
scarce.
This trend has so alarmed officials in Jalisco, one of Mexico's most
important agricultural states, that they are planning to import donkeys
from Kentucky to revive the dwindling population. The project, they
said, will bring economic benefits to ailing rural areas, where many
poor farmers still depend on beasts of burden.
Donkeys, first brought to Mexico by conquering Spaniards at the turn of
the 16th century, have long been a stereotype of rural Mexican life.
Even today, said Martin Martinez Cervantes, a Jalisco rural development
official, some tourists still expect to find "every Mexican riding a
donkey."
But those days are gone. In fact, many farmers have shunned donkeys
because of their negative association with poverty and backwardness,
officials said. Now, as the animals have started disappearing, people
are "realizing their importance," Martinez said.
Both donkeys, known as burros throughout Mexico, and mules, produced by
cross-breeding horses and donkeys, have gained belated respect as their
numbers have diminished. Farmers say they cause less damage than
machines amid the tight rows of blue agave, the spike-leaved plants that
produce tequila. Coffee growers in other states say they get better
traction than trucks on highland slopes. And in many remote areas with
no roads, they are still the only ride home.
Martinez said the demand for donkeys began to dwindle as more young,
rural Mexicans relocated to the United States and began sending home
enough money for their parents to buy a tractor or a pickup.
Increasingly, donkeys were sent to slaughterhouses or not replaced when
they died. Now, he said, the demand has outstripped the supply.
International promoters of the donkey argue that these sturdy quadrupeds
are stronger than horses, easier to care for and more resistant to hot
temperatures; they said mules are even hardier. "They are growing in
popularity," said Leah Patton of the American Donkey and Mule Society in
Texas, which works to correct what she described as "a lot of
misinformation" about donkeys, including the notion that they are not
especially bright.
Even if few people know a jack from a jennet, or jenny -- as male and
female donkeys are called -- there is growing appreciation of the donkey
as "an efficient working machine with a longer life span than a car and
the ability to get into places that cars can't," Patton added.
In some parts of Mexico, especially the poor southern states of Oaxaca
and Guerrero, there is no dire donkey shortage. But Francisco Lugo
Serrano, the Jalisco official leading the import project, said their
numbers have greatly diminished in many other regions, particularly in
the more developed north.
The donkeys that remain tend to be small, often more than a head shorter
than their American cousins, Lugo said. He plans to import about 50
Kentucky donkeys and breed them with Mexican horses to produce mules, as
well as creating a national breeding center that will strengthen Mexican
donkey stock.
Steve Aaron, a retired surgeon and health official in Kentucky, is
scheduled to come to Mexico later this month to give a PowerPoint
presentation on the Mammoth Jack breed. He doesn't use the word donkey,
which he said, "means a small gray animal," but calls his animals
"mammoths." Aaron said his big-boned animals are descendants of the jack
and jennet that the King of Spain famously sent to George Washington in
1785.
Aline Alija, a veterinarian in Mexico City, said donkeys have long been
a "symbol of underdevelopment" because poor people owned them. She is
working on a program, funded by British donkey protection associations,
that sends teams of veterinarians into the Mexican countryside looking
for neglected and overworked donkeys in need of medical attention.
Some farmers who shunned donkeys for the efficiency and status of more
modern machines regret their haste.
"They are so useful and such hard workers," said Vazquez, who manages a
ranch in this scenic town of 50,000. A few years back, his farm
purchased a jack from Kentucky, who was mated with nine mares and
produced nine strong mules. "We need more of them."
Felipe de Jesus Padilla Robles, 81, a farmer in Tala, said he always
took good care of his donkey, whom he has now outlived. For years, he
said, the two of them worked alongside each other in the sugar cane and
corn fields. "We understood each other," he said.
As more farmers become nostalgic about their donkeys, the nation's
largest annual donkey festival has surged in popularity. This year,
30,000 people attended the Otumba Donkey Festival, held May 1 near
Mexico City.
The festival featured donkey polo, donkey racing and a costume contest
in which burros were dressed as famous figures. They included Mexican
President Vicente Fox and President Bush.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Correspondent:: "nu-monet v7.0"
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 11:37:10 -0700
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König Prüß, GfbAEV wrote:
>
> washingtonpost.com
> Mexico Up Against a Burro Deficit
Horses, donkey/burros, and mules are three
of the strangest critters around, and very
different from each other.
Horses are fast and cooperative, but in exchange
for this they are disease-ridden, have to have
strict and expensive diets, and tend towards
overbreeding, like some specialized breeds of
dog.
Donkeys/burros and mules are slow, uncooperative
to the point of needing special handlers, aka
"mule skinners", are far better at being pack
animals than riding, are sure footed on uneven
surfaces and mountains, can get fat on any kind
of damn food, and are like Energizer bunnies in
conditions that would kill a typical horse.
A decade or so ago, when the US wanted to
reactivate the 10th Mountain Division at Ft Drum,
New York, they assumed that the Division would
need a large stable of donkeys, who could go many
places land vehicles can't manage. However, after
building stables and getting the animals, they
learned that there were almost no professional
mule skinners left to train the soldiers how to
handle them.
--
"Money can't buy you happiness,
but when you're poor, you can't
buy shit, and nobody will loan
you happiness."
--nu-monet
Correspondent:: König Prüß, GfbAEV
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:50:23 GMT
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"nu-monet v7.0" wrote:
> König Prüß, GfbAEV wrote:
> >
> > washingtonpost.com
> > Mexico Up Against a Burro Deficit
>
> Horses, donkey/burros, and mules are three
> of the strangest critters around, and very
> different from each other.
>
> Horses are fast and cooperative, but in exchange
> for this they are disease-ridden, have to have
> strict and expensive diets, and tend towards
> overbreeding, like some specialized breeds of
> dog.
>
> Donkeys/burros and mules are slow, uncooperative
> to the point of needing special handlers, aka
> "mule skinners", are far better at being pack
> animals than riding, are sure footed on uneven
> surfaces and mountains, can get fat on any kind
> of damn food, and are like Energizer bunnies in
> conditions that would kill a typical horse.
>
> A decade or so ago, when the US wanted to
> reactivate the 10th Mountain Division at Ft Drum,
> New York, they assumed that the Division would
> need a large stable of donkeys, who could go many
> places land vehicles can't manage. However, after
> building stables and getting the animals, they
> learned that there were almost no professional
> mule skinners left to train the soldiers how to
> handle them.
>
> --
>
When I lived in the first brewery ever built in Nevada in Virginia
City,
there were a fair number of wild mustangs and burros. And camel races.
There was a camel batallion at one time, and there was a legend about
a camel roaming the desert with a skeleton tied on its back.
Anyway, that jumbo burro looks interesting, but the kind of burros
they have around Tequila, Jalisco are the smaller sort. Them jumbo
burros would freek the shit out of the girls in Tijuana!
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I31187-2004Nov06L
Correspondent:: nikolai kingsley
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 06:01:34 +1100
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> Donkeys/burros and mules are slow, uncooperative
> to the point of needing special handlers, aka
> "mule skinners"...
oh!
and here's me thinking Rev. Stang named his machines after someone WHOSE
JOB IT WAS TO PULL THE SKIN OFFEN MULES.
Correspondent:: mshotz@aol.commonkeypo (Rev. Richard Skull)
Date: 07 Nov 2004 19:52:19 GMT
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>Horses, donkey/burros, and mules are three
>of the strangest critters around, and very
>different from each other.
>
>Horses are fast and cooperative, but in exchange
>for this they are disease-ridden, have to have
>strict and expensive diets, and tend towards
>overbreeding, like some specialized breeds of
>dog.
In the 1980's the Army & Marines were testing various new tactics and equipment
for light infantry.
They found that Donkeys, Mules, and Horses were THE best way to move quickly &
quietly though terrain like thick jungle & rough mountains and hills.
They requested that the DoD establish a system to breed and train pack animals
for such contengencies. The Services gfigured at an annual cost of only $20
Million, the Services wold have a invaluable asset to mobility.
The Reagan era DoD sya that and basicly said that any US Military of the future
would NOT, repeat NOT use pack animals of any kind.
Now, if you go to the web pages for Militaries in those reagions that have
thick jungles and rugged terrian, they all use pack animals in conjuntion with
more modern means to move and supply troops.
I say a NOVA episode in whcih the Argentine Army sent a unit up into the Andies
to recover bodies from a BOAC aircrash form 1947 that was dicovered in the
mountains.
The altitude was so high, helocopters could not fly there, and the terrain was
so rough, trucks could not go there. They used 100 mules & donkeys to get to
one day of the crash site. When the terrain got too rough even for them and the
troops had to hump up the mountain the rest of the way. The US army would have
had to tried to use trucks and ended up a major operation using engineers to
bridge the ravies, etc. costing much more and taking much longer in an area
where the "weather" window was very sort.
MSHOTZ: The Post Post Modern Man
"War hath no Fury like a non-combatants"
Charles E. Montague
Correspondent:: mshotz@aol.commonkeypo (Rev. Richard Skull)
Date: 07 Nov 2004 19:42:03 GMT
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>The festival featured donkey polo, donkey racing and a costume contest
>in which burros were dressed as famous figures. They included Mexican
>President Vicente Fox and President Bush.
>
Wow! A Jackass dressed up as a Jackass!
MSHOTZ: The Post Post Modern Man
"War hath no Fury like a non-combatants"
Charles E. Montague
Correspondent:: Frere Jean Bleu
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 18:50:33 +1100
--------
On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:09:38 GMT, König Prüß, GfbAEV
wrote:
>"There used to be 50 in every town. Now there is one, if that," said
>Nicolas Vazquez Ortega, a ranch manager. "Before you used to see packs
>of mules and donkeys in the fields when you were driving along the road.
>Now they are disappearing."
Oh it's a DONKEY shortage. I thought they had run out of refried
beans.
Fr J B