Riverside’s donkey dilemma: can science help people and wild burros share the landscape?

In the hills and neighborhoods around Riverside, wild donkeys have become both a beloved sight and a growing source of concern. On and near the UC Riverside campus, the animals are often treated like local celebrities, drawing photos and fascination from students. But for nearby residents, the reality is more complicated: the same burros that charm passersby can also create traffic hazards, damage landscaping and raise fears about close encounters.

That tension has turned the animals into one of the region’s most unusual coexistence challenges. Public debate over what to do with the herd has already become heated in recent years, especially when relocation efforts were proposed. Incidents involving donkeys being injured have only added to the intensity of feeling around the issue.

What stands out most is how little hard data exists. Even with the animals frequently seen near roads, homes and school grounds, scientists still lack clear answers to basic questions: how many donkeys live in the area, whether their numbers are rising, where they travel through the seasons and what their overall ecological effect may be.

Researchers at UC Riverside are now trying to fill those gaps. Their goal is practical as much as academic: better information could help communities reduce conflict with the animals while making smarter decisions about long-term management.

One major focus is population tracking. Current estimates suggest several hundred burros move through the Box Springs Mountain Reserve and adjoining communities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. During hotter, drier parts of the year, the animals often leave the hillsides and head toward greener, irrigated spaces, including lawns and shady structures on campus. That seasonal movement appears to be tied to water, food availability and relief from heat.

To better understand those patterns, researchers are placing motion-activated wildlife cameras across the donkeys’ range. The footage is expected to help identify herd size, monitor reproduction and reveal how often animals move into developed areas. That information could prove vital for road safety planning, especially if officials ultimately consider fencing, wildlife crossings or other infrastructure to reduce collisions.

The project also examines the donkeys’ environmental footprint. Feral grazing animals can reshape landscapes in complicated ways, and the Riverside herd may be no exception. On one hand, the burros may consume invasive grasses that otherwise crowd out native plants, potentially offering an unexpected ecological service. On the other, repeated hoof traffic along slopes and informal paths could worsen erosion and degrade sensitive habitat.

To sort out those competing possibilities, researchers are studying what the donkeys eat and how they use the terrain. Sample analysis, including dung surveys, can provide clues about diet, seed dispersal and habitat use. If additional funding becomes available, GPS collars may later be used to map movement in finer detail and show how weather, drought or urban growth influence where the animals go.

Another line of inquiry reaches further back in time. Scientists also want to know where this herd came from. Donkeys were first domesticated thousands of years ago in eastern Africa and later spread through Europe and the Americas with human migration and trade. In Southern California, the ancestry of today’s free-roaming animals remains uncertain. Some local stories suggest they descend from animals left behind during mining activity, while others claim they were introduced much more recently from desert populations elsewhere in the state.

Genetic analysis may help untangle those accounts. By comparing DNA from Riverside-area burros with samples from other populations, scientists hope to reconstruct the herd’s origins and perhaps better understand how isolated or connected it is to other groups in the American West.

That matters because Riverside’s donkeys occupy an unusually urban edge habitat. In many parts of the Southwest, wild burros range across open desert or remote public land. Here, they routinely pass through neighborhoods, parking lots and school property. That close overlap with people changes the stakes. Human-fed wildlife often grows bolder; road networks increase mortality risk; and suburban expansion narrows the space available for animal movement.

Safety messaging has therefore become an important part of the coexistence effort. People are urged not to feed or approach the donkeys, which are strong animals capable of biting, kicking or charging if they feel cornered or threatened. Drivers are also encouraged to slow down in areas where burros are known to cross, since collisions can seriously injure both humans and animals.

The broader challenge is one familiar to many fast-growing regions: development is pressing deeper into habitats once used mainly by wildlife, and communities are left to decide how much adaptation they are willing to make. In Riverside, the donkey issue is no longer just a curiosity of campus life or foothill living. It is becoming a case study in how science, urban planning and public values intersect.

If researchers can pin down where the burros travel, how fast the herd is growing and what role it plays in the ecosystem, local officials may be better equipped to choose responses that are less reactive and more evidence-based. That could mean new barriers in some places, habitat protections in others, or simply clearer rules for residents and visitors.

For now, the animals remain both symbol and stress point: charismatic, controversial and not yet fully understood. In a region where suburbs meet rugged open land, learning to live with them may depend less on emotion and more on careful ecological research.