Fence Built in Arizona to Protect Burros and Motorists

Arizona's Department of Transportation has taken a significant step to enhance road safety by installing a new fence along AZ Highway 95. This initiative aims to protect both burros and motorists, reducing the risk of accidents and ensuring safer travel.

“Brighty of the Grand Canyon” was a wild burro who starred in a Walt Disney movie in 1967. Cute as can be. Free-spirited and shaggy, the little burro actually lived in the Grand Canyon for almost thirty years in the early 1900′s. Today, burros aren’t so cute when they collide with cars along AZ Highway 95 north of town. Most disturbing is when burros are injured and run off to suffer in pain somewhere in the desert. Happily, help is on the way.

As the Arizona Department of Transportation expands the AZ Highway 95 corridor into a consistent four-lane highway leading into the city, they are giving both burros and motorists a break with the installation of miles of tall game fencing to keep burros from straying across the road. Back in the early 1970s, when the city only had 4,000 residents, versus 53,000 today, herds of burros roamed free, reminding people of our Wild West origins. But as the city grew, efforts were required to keep the burros off highways that were becoming increasingly more traveled.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) relocated many of them. Those left behind did what boy and girl burros do in their spare time and started to multiply, especially north of town. Signs went up warning motorists. Trouble is, burros, usually light gray or dark brown, absorb the light that shines on them. They’re very difficult to see until the last second.

Plus they can’t read because, well, they’re burros. What’s more, road edges contain lots of tasty grass that grow thick following runoff from rain. It’s the first place that greens up after a storm.

Now a fence has been erected north of the city limits for about eight miles. This is a good thing, a very good thing, especially if you ask the burros (who can’t talk either, but you get the idea).

Now Brighty’s descendants are being directed to safer underground culverts to avoid traffic – routes fully approved by environmental and conservation authorities.

‘The fencing project will improve the safety of the traveling public getting to and from Lake Havasu. It’s good for everyone involved, burros and people”, said W. Mark Clark, PE, PTOE, Lake Havasu City Maintenance Services Division Manager.

Originally Posted By Lake Havasu