Earlier this month, Navarro County, Texas, shipped off a load of 12 donkeys and two Asian Wild Asses to a rescue group near San Angelo.
The Asian Wild Asses were kept by the county for several months, on the theory that the animals’ owners would eventually show back up, but the donkeys are an old, sad story of abandonment that’s becoming a state-wide, country-wide and world-wide problem.
The dire plight of abandoned donkeys exists world-wide, not just in Texas. With the economy affecting many people, the abandonment of animals is taking causing pain and suffering to untold numbers of animals.
Rescue operations are working at capacity and auction houses are refusing to take on more animals including donkeys.
Peaceful Valley is one such rescue operation and has rescue operations in 27 states in the U.S. The rescue group picks up the animals, castrates the males, and microchips each donkey before trying to adopt them out to families.
Those that are too wild or that have health issues will either go to the two main facilities in Miles, Texas, or in California, or to grazing land that the rescue group maintains.