Arizona burros cautiously eyed the exit off the Bureau of Land Management horse trailer, before stepping out on dainty hooves to follow the leader into a small corral.

The burros were resting on Friday night at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Polson where their new owners would pick them up on Saturday morning.

Donkeys and burros are the same, since burro is the Spanish word for donkey. Burro is used for the wild or feral creatures in Arizona, according to Eric Duarte, BLM Wild Horse/Burro Specialist out of Arizona.

Most of the long-eared critters at the Polson Fairgrounds had the distinctive “cross” markings — a black line across their shoulders and a black dorsal stripe from mane to tail along their backbone. The color spectrum on the burros went from cream to silvery-grey. One jenny was darker, almost black.

Coming from the Bureau of Land Management Lake Pleasant and Three Rivers Herd Management Areas in Arizona, the jennies, aged two to three, were trailered to Montana to new homes. All these burros had been offered for adoption three times with no takers, so they were sold for $125 apiece.

The girls were going to new homes with Polson as the pick-up area. Two other pick-up points for the rest of the approximately 50 burros who traveled north with the Polson jennies are Belt and Miles City.

Duarte and Patrick Merrill, BLM wild horse and burro coordinator for Montana and the Dakotas, were chauffeuring the ladies. Although this group were all jennies, the BLM adopts out and sells gelded jacks, too.

Merrill said ranchers in eastern Montana like burros as guardian animals for their cows and sheep.

“Burros are really good against coyotes,” Merrill said.

He added that the long-eared animals are good critters and have unique personalities. They can also be used as companion animals for horses.

He said the BLM tries to time the sales and adoptions of Arizona burros so the southwestern animals have a chance to acclimate before cold weather hits.

“Arizona is a big burro area,” Duarte said.

This summer, the Three Rivers HMA had way too many burros for the land to support. Consequently, burros were wandering onto people’s property in search of food, competing with livestock for resources, and being hit and killed on the highway as they traveled to find forage, he explained.

So the BLM staff “trapped” burros, which means they set up temporary corrals with alfalfa hay and water in them. This July the Three Rivers HMA enticed 1,100 burros into their trap. The BLM staff draws blood and administers a Coggins test to look for Equine Infectious Anemia, or anything else “bad,” chips the animals, and freeze brands them on the left side of their neck.

Many burros and wild horses will need new homes as approximately 20,000 wild horses are being captured to reduce the 73,000 wild equines running wild on BLM lands.

People interested in adopting or helping save wild horses and burros can learn more at the BLM Corral, wildhorsesonline.blm.gov, which lists rules for adoption, profiles of animals available for adoption, and adoption sites.