Latest / NaturallyScott / E77 Naturally Scott Adventures β Wild Burros of Oatman: Where Burros Rule Route 66 π«ποΈ
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Naturally Scott.
- 0:02SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Scott Harris, and uh this is one of our Naturally Scott adventures.
- 0:07SPEAKER_00: We try to do these roughly every other week, and instead of having a human guest, we highlight an animal or a location and a trip that I've been able to take recently, a little bit of an adventure that I've had.
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: Had some people asking about those, and so we've decided to share them, and I'm having a blast doing that.
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: The last one we did was uh California Condors, and this was actually from the same trip.
- 0:32SPEAKER_00: Uh we did Wild Horses, Wild Burrows, and California Condors on one trip.
- 0:37SPEAKER_00: My wife and I did, my wife Randy.
- 0:39SPEAKER_00: So that was a neat trip.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: And uh this one is going to be on Wild Burroughs.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: But before we get to the Wild Burrows, we're going to tell a little story, which in the early 1850s, uh the Oatman family uh was attacked by, I believe it's pronounced Havapai Indians.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: Uh this was in nine in 1851, and the family was completely slaughtered.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: Um, seven or eight members of the family were killed.
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: All of Oatman was the only survivor.
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: She was taken uh prisoner, she was captured.
- 1:11SPEAKER_00: Um and uh for five years uh she was bounced around from tribe to tribe um as a as a physical asset.
- 1:22SPEAKER_00: And then in 1856, she was traded back to her brother and gained her freedom.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: And um a remarkable story, probably worth a podcast by another podcaster, but nonetheless, something pretty amazing.
- 1:37SPEAKER_00: In 1863, we fast forward a few years, gold was discovered in the Black Mountains, and um there was a town that was created, and eventually that town was named Oatman in honor of the young lady who survived.
- 1:54SPEAKER_00: So pretty miraculous thing, pretty cool deal.
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: And Oatman is a is another story uh well worth telling.
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: So there was gold discovered, there were mines done.
- 2:05SPEAKER_00: By the year 1915, 3,500 people lived in Oatman, which was a lot of people in 1915 in the middle of the desert.
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: In addition to the 3,500 people, there were roughly 3,000 working burrows uh that lived there as well.
- 2:25SPEAKER_00: So almost as many burrows as people, and that was kind of a cool thing.
- 2:30SPEAKER_00: Now, those burrows were tremendously important uh for the uh for the mines, for the work that they did, and we'll talk about some of that work that they did, and that lasted until World War II, when the government shut the mines down uh so that the assets and and things could be used for other purposes.
- 2:50SPEAKER_00: So the mines were abandoned because they were shut down, so there was no value to them, and uh the boroughs were abandoned.
- 2:59SPEAKER_00: Uh nobody wanted to take care of the burrows, so they were set off on their own.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: People didn't know if the burrows were going to be able to survive or not, but frankly, nobody cared enough to do anything about it.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: The burrows, tough, tough animals, learn to fend for themselves, and they still do that 80 years later.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: They are amazing animals, and they learned um how to take care of themselves in the desert, which is truly a remarkable thing.
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: Uh they were able to forage where other animals would not have been able to forage.
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: Uh, they lived with a lot less water than other animals would have been able to live by.
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: Most animals would have died of starvation or of thirst, um, and these didn't.
- 3:48SPEAKER_00: The heat is brutal, the land is cruel, and uh these boroughs continue to survive.
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: They learn to fend for themselves, and they still do.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: Now, the town of Oatman didn't do quite as well.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: So it went from 3,500 residents a little over 100 years ago, down to 100 residents now.
- 4:08SPEAKER_00: And those residents are pretty much all involved in kind of kitschy tourism things.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: Um the at the height, Oatman had, I believe, seven hotels.
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: Now there's none.
- 4:19SPEAKER_00: There's no place to stay the night there.
- 4:21SPEAKER_00: You come in for a day trip.
- 4:23SPEAKER_00: It's part of historic Route 66.
- 4:27SPEAKER_00: You come into this little town, Oatman, Arizona, and um I visited it a lot as a young man and as a young adult when we would go into Laughlin or go to the Colorado River.
- 4:38SPEAKER_00: We always took a few hours trip into Oatman to go see the boroughs and hang out.
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: And it's it's what you could imagine a town like that would be.
- 4:46SPEAKER_00: It's t-shirt chops and selling bags of borough food for a buck and um, you know, uh coffee mugs and thimbles and all of those things, all the little gifty things that you do uh to commemorate your day with the with the boroughs and the 100 people who live in Oatman.
- 5:04SPEAKER_00: And by the way, those are pretty hearty residents as well.
- 5:07SPEAKER_00: That is uh that is an interesting town to to make a living in, to build a life in.
- 5:13SPEAKER_00: Um, but I went in a couple of times in the morning into town, and um the people there seem to enjoy it.
- 5:21SPEAKER_00: The boroughs don't get there at dawn.
- 5:22SPEAKER_00: They're not an early riser.
- 5:24SPEAKER_00: They drift in mid-morning, which is about when the tourists come in.
- 5:29SPEAKER_00: But if you get there early in the morning, you can look down Main Street, the only street, and it's empty, and it's kind of cool that way.
- 5:36SPEAKER_00: You know, there's shops on both sides of the street, streets only a couple hundred yards long, um, and then slowly the residents, almost all of whom work in the various shops uh on Main Street, come out and they start cleaning up and sweeping and opening doors and getting ready.
- 5:52SPEAKER_00: Some of them feed the boroughs, um, which is kind of cool.
- 5:55SPEAKER_00: We'll show some shots of that.
- 5:57SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty neat deal.
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: And the boroughs come.
- 6:00SPEAKER_00: And there are somewhere between 12 and 20 boroughs uh that are town boroughs.
- 6:06SPEAKER_00: And the town boroughs are separate from the boroughs that live out in the desert, of which there are still a large number uh that are out there, and we'll talk about those as well.
- 6:16SPEAKER_00: But the town boroughs come in and they are very habituated to people, and it's a good thing too, because these are powerful animals.
- 6:24SPEAKER_00: But they come in and they hang out with people, they love to get fed, uh they run the town.
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: You'll see them walk up onto the walkways, poke their heads into the stores.
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: If the shop owners don't stop them, they'll actually walk into the t-shirt shop or uh the little snack bar or whatever it might be.
- 6:43SPEAKER_00: Um there you can have children around them, uh children hand feed them, and the burrows are very gentle.
- 6:50SPEAKER_00: Um and it is it is really kind of a neat thing to see.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: And it's wild because if they walk out onto the one street, traffic stops.
- 6:58SPEAKER_00: Nobody moves the burrows.
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: And actually, if they lie down, uh you'll see a local come and put a couple of orange cones around them.
- 7:05SPEAKER_00: And uh you gotta you gotta work your way around that, uh, whether you're walking or driving.
- 7:10SPEAKER_00: And so it's uh it's a fun thing to see.
- 7:13SPEAKER_00: Now, these burrows are descendants of African wild asses.
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: Um obviously they've changed and and they're a bit different.
- 7:22SPEAKER_00: Um but that's where they started, that's what they were, and and now they are these wild burrows.
- 7:29SPEAKER_00: And I think it's reasonable um to say that they are calm, they're basically fearless, they are vicious when they need to be, and their kicks are legendary.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: Battles between burrows are brutal and uh sometimes fatal, and uh burrows do battle.
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: So you have the jacks, which are the male burrows, and by the way, burrows are the same as donkeys, and jacks are male and jennies are female, so um that's where you go.
- 7:59SPEAKER_00: But burrows are the term that are used most often in the southwest.
- 8:03SPEAKER_00: I live now in the southeast and they're donkeys, but um they are the same animal, but their kicks are legendarily strong.
- 8:11SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, they don't kick tourists, um, as long as tourists are kind and gentle and reasonably smart.
- 8:19SPEAKER_00: So the boroughs outside of the, let's say, roughly less than two dozen that that are the town boroughs.
- 8:26SPEAKER_00: And by the way, as I understand it from the pe the local people that I spoke to over the few days we were there, is those boroughs are separate from the desert boroughs and they protect their township.
- 8:37SPEAKER_00: Uh they don't like to have new boroughs come in, they like to be in charge, they realize there's only so many tourists, only so much free food, only so much easy living.
- 8:46SPEAKER_00: So they're not excited about having other boroughs be a part of it.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: They're kind of transition boroughs, boroughs that live close to town, maybe waiting for an opening or an opportunity to join the town group.
- 8:58SPEAKER_00: And then there's the pure desert ones.
- 9:00SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because if you're driving in on Route 66 into Oatman, um uh when you're when you're a few miles away from Oatman, you can see the boroughs, but they're far off in the desert.
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: And as you get closer to town, the burrows come closer to the road.
- 9:18SPEAKER_00: And so you can see that they're more and more comfortable with people.
- 9:22SPEAKER_00: And um, my wife and I stopped a couple of times, and some of these non-town boroughs will come right up to cars.
- 9:30SPEAKER_00: They're looking for handouts, they're looking for apples, they're looking for sandwiches, they're looking for whatever they can find.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: And so the further you get away from town, the more independent and the more uh cautious they are around humans, the closer you get into town, that caution fades.
- 9:48SPEAKER_00: They live in kind of loose social groups, if you will, uh, the Jack Burroughs in charge.
- 9:54SPEAKER_00: And his biggest responsibility is to make sure that um unwanted burrows and unwanted other animals, uh coyotes or whatnot, that might attack a young burrow or a weak or a sick burrow are taken care of, and that's the Jack's job.
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: That and water.
- 10:12SPEAKER_00: The Jack's job is to find water and then defend it.
- 10:15SPEAKER_00: Water is not easy to find and it's not easy to defend because everybody wants a piece of that water.
- 10:22SPEAKER_00: And there are no animals around that will attack a healthy adult burrow.
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: Um it just it it just isn't done.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: It's it's stupid because you will get kicked to death.
- 10:32SPEAKER_00: Um and so if you're weak, injured, or very young, you're susceptible, and hopefully you've got a strong jack that's protecting you.
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: Wild burrows can live over twenty-five years, which is amazing in the harsh environment in the desert.
- 10:47SPEAKER_00: You know, it reaches 120 degrees.
- 10:51SPEAKER_00: Food is difficult to come by, water is difficult to come by, the heat is brutal, and yet these animals survive for a quarter of a century.
- 11:00SPEAKER_00: Their bray, their call can be heard from miles over the desert.
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: So it's uh and it's a great call.
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: I love donkey calls.
- 11:09SPEAKER_00: I've told my wife recently that if I could have a single pet now, it would be a small donkey.
- 11:14SPEAKER_00: I I just I've fallen in love with him, and these burrows are just are they're so cool.
- 11:19SPEAKER_00: Now, back in 1971, uh the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burroughs Act was passed, and that protects the wild burrows and the wild horses.
- 11:29SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh, you know, and that's not not everybody's a big fan of that, because you've got some BLM land around there, some cattle are roaming, and um a lot of the ranchers aren't fans of having wild horses and wild burrows uh eat food that their cattle could eat.
- 11:47SPEAKER_00: But nonetheless, they've been protected now for over 50 years.
- 11:50SPEAKER_00: There is a BLM adoption program for the burrows, just as there is for the wild horses.
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: Um, because they don't have natural predators anymore, and because they've they've grown so many, I mean, they're so prolific, um there you can get to the point where there's too many for the land to support, in which case they start starving.
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: And and so um the BLM people try to capture some and see if they can't have them adopted and try to cut down on the population that way.
- 12:20SPEAKER_00: So it's a balancing act um between the wild boroughs, the BLM, the ranchers, the town folks, the tourists, trying to keep all of that balanced is a bit of a challenge and uh and kind of an interesting one as well.
- 12:36SPEAKER_00: When you go into town, if you do now, if you just go out on the desert, they're really cool.
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll show you some shots, they're beautiful.
- 12:42SPEAKER_00: I love these animals.
- 12:43SPEAKER_00: I think they're stunning and they're great to see out in the desert.
- 12:47SPEAKER_00: But in all candor, as much as I love nature being out in nature, um, the really fun part of these boroughs is them being in town, is them being in Oatman.
- 12:58SPEAKER_00: And they run the town.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're up on the elevated sidewalks, they're inside the stores, they're walking up and down the streets.
- 13:06SPEAKER_00: Uh, like I mentioned, if they want to take a nap, traffic cones go up.
- 13:11SPEAKER_00: Um, and so these, you know, 20 or so boroughs are really cool.
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: The locals know them by sight and by name.
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: Um, Ollie seems to be one of the real popular ones and one of the more aggressive ones, and I don't mean in a mean way, but just likes to climb the stairs, go on the sidewalk, walk into a store, and um, and you can hear a lot of people saying, Ollie, get out of the store.
- 13:36SPEAKER_00: Ollie, I told you to go back to the street.
- 13:38SPEAKER_00: But the locals seem to know all of them.
- 13:40SPEAKER_00: And so, especially if you get there early in the morning before most of the tourists do, you can watch the interaction uh between the local residents and the shopkeepers and whatnot and the boroughs.
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: And it's it's kind of cool.
- 13:52SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a really neat thing.
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things I have to tell you that I love about Oatman and I have forever, it's just a personal thing, but it's significant to me, is one of the shops has a sign.
- 14:04SPEAKER_00: It's a shop that sells ice cream that says Proudly Serves Thrifty Ice Cream.
- 14:10SPEAKER_00: For those of you that don't know, Thrifty was a drugstore chain on the West Coast, and I grew up with that chain.
- 14:16SPEAKER_00: And um, when I would go visit my grandfather down in Anaheim, California, he used to take me to the local Thrifty.
- 14:23SPEAKER_00: And you could get a single cone for a nickel, a double cone for a dime, and a triple cone for 15.
- 14:28SPEAKER_00: Now, grandpa was a generous man but frugal at the same time, so we settled always on a double cone.
- 14:35SPEAKER_00: And mine was Rocky Road on the bottom and Orange Sherbert on the top, and that was my treat from Grandpa Harris.
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: And I used to love that treat.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: It just meant so much to me.
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: We'd go down and grandpa would pull out a dime.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: And if my brother and sister came, obviously it was 30 cents.
- 14:51SPEAKER_00: Um, but we would get that thrifty ice cream, and and that's kind of cool that that that that happened.
- 14:58SPEAKER_00: And that they still have that there.
- 15:00SPEAKER_00: They still have the sign that says proudly serving thrifty ice cream.
- 15:04SPEAKER_00: Um, there are other places where you can see wild burrows.
- 15:07SPEAKER_00: There are spots around the country.
- 15:08SPEAKER_00: Death Valley National Park has their own wild burrows.
- 15:12SPEAKER_00: Uh South Dakota's Custer State Park has what they what are known as the Begging Burrows.
- 15:18SPEAKER_00: And actually, I'll be going up to see those in December because I'm going up into South Dakota uh to look for a bighorn sheep for a book called American Safaris that I'm writing and one of the chapters on bighorn sheep.
- 15:31SPEAKER_00: So I'm going up there.
- 15:32SPEAKER_00: But I'm also going to go see the wild boroughs just because I love them so much.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's, it's, it's really kind of a cool thing.
- 15:38SPEAKER_00: Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which is relatively close to Oatman, has the same thing.
- 15:44SPEAKER_00: They have descendants of the mining boroughs, and uh they have carved out a living at Lake Mead.
- 15:50SPEAKER_00: And so that's uh that's a neat thing to go see as well.
- 15:54SPEAKER_00: But no doubt about it, the absolute easiest place to see them is in Oatman.
- 15:58SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna go there, you're gonna want to stay, maybe stay in Laughlin on the Colorado River, which is a great place to stay.
- 16:06SPEAKER_00: You can stay in Page, Arizona.
- 16:08SPEAKER_00: You can't stay in Oatman, and you really don't want to camp, um, especially if you're there in the summer.
- 16:12SPEAKER_00: It's just too blazing hot to do that.
- 16:15SPEAKER_00: So you kind of got to be careful about that.
- 16:18SPEAKER_00: Um, but there is something about being able to pet one of these burrows.
- 16:22SPEAKER_00: They're not big animals at all.
- 16:23SPEAKER_00: It's not like a 15-hand horse or anything.
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: They're they're relatively small.
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: They're beautiful gray, they've got a little bit of brown and white uh going on, and you can usually find uh a couple of baby burrows as well.
- 16:37SPEAKER_00: And when you come into town, starting, say, a mile or two out, and if you stop the car, the burrows come and you can get out and and hang with them for a little bit, or just roll down the windows, they'll throw their head right into the car, which can be a little disconcerting if you've never had that happen before.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Um, they're small animals, but when their head comes through the car window, they seem a little bigger uh than you might be used to.
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: So this is a bit of a different adventure.
- 17:03SPEAKER_00: It's not a pure nature adventure, um, but nonetheless, it's fun.
- 17:07SPEAKER_00: It involves wild or maybe semi-wild animals.
- 17:11SPEAKER_00: And I want to share these things with you.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: I want you to, I want you to enjoy these things either through me and some of my photography, or of course, better yet, if you're able to do it personally, to get up into South Dakota or get out to Death Valley in California or get to Lake Mead or get to Oatman and Route 66.
- 17:30SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, it's pretty romantic to be driving along Route 66, which is a great road anyway.
- 17:36SPEAKER_00: You got Route 66, and now you got these wild burrows.
- 17:39SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty cool thing to see.
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to continue to go on my adventures, and I'm going to continue uh to create these short little, you know, 20-minute uh podcasts on the various adventures.
- 17:50SPEAKER_00: But if you've got recommendations for adventures, um, if you've got some ideas for some, and mostly in the lower 48, um, although there's some other trips coming up that uh that I plan on doing and plan on sharing with you.
- 18:03SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you've got some suggestions, send them to me.
- 18:05SPEAKER_00: I'm throwing my email up right now.
- 18:07SPEAKER_00: It's Scott at naturally scott.com.
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: I love getting emails.
- 18:11SPEAKER_00: I will tell you, it is a highlight for me when I get a note from somebody who has watched a show and said, Hey, I love this.
- 18:19SPEAKER_00: Or you know what, Scott?
- 18:20SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure this fact was correct.
- 18:22SPEAKER_00: You might want to look into it a little bit.
- 18:23SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to do that.
- 18:25SPEAKER_00: Um, or suggestions on have you considered doing a show with this guest or with this location or with this animal?
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: I'm open to all of that.
- 18:34SPEAKER_00: So again, the email is Scott at naturalisc.com.
- 18:39SPEAKER_00: Now, we have over the last few months we shifted focus um and we're pretty much assuming that the that the show is being watched and not just listened to.
- 18:49SPEAKER_00: I know that some people listen to it, um, but that is why we have the videos and the photographs, which I love sharing with you as well.
- 18:56SPEAKER_00: If you're watching this currently on YouTube, do us a favor and hit subscribe.
- 19:01SPEAKER_00: When you do that, YouTube pushes these videos out to more people.
- 19:05SPEAKER_00: And not as much with the adventures, but certainly with the guests.
- 19:08SPEAKER_00: I want as many people to see them as possible because I think it's great.
- 19:13SPEAKER_00: And um I love for people to meet my guests and to see them.
- 19:17SPEAKER_00: And if you subscribe, it helps us do that.
- 19:19SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if you're there, if you want to hit like or drop a comment, man, go ahead.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: Comments are always welcome.
- 19:26SPEAKER_00: And frankly, a little bit of an ego.
- 19:28SPEAKER_00: Likes are kind of fun too.
- 19:30SPEAKER_00: Um, I like to encourage everybody to get outside.
- 19:34SPEAKER_00: You can define outside as whatever you want it to be.
- 19:36SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll say it's your front porch, it's your backyard, it's a local park, it's a national park, it's Oatman, Arizona.
- 19:45SPEAKER_00: It is anywhere you go.
- 19:47SPEAKER_00: And I gotta, when you're out there, things happen.
- 19:50SPEAKER_00: You see things, you become a part of the outdoors, and you see and experience things that you might not otherwise see and experience.
- 19:58SPEAKER_00: So it makes it well worth it.
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: And I tell people every time, and I love telling people and sharing this, if you do get outside, and I hope that you do, make sure that you stay safe and stay curious.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening today.
- 20:11SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think about the Wild Burrows.
- 20:14SPEAKER_00: Let me know if you get to open, or if you've been.
- 20:16SPEAKER_00: If you've been, send me a note on your experience.
- 20:19SPEAKER_00: Um, or if you get a chance, get out there and see that.
- 20:23SPEAKER_00: But either way, thank you for being a part of the show.
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: I'm Scott Harris.
- 20:27SPEAKER_00: This is Naturally Scott with a special edition of Naturally Scott Adventures.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: Have an amazing day.
- 20:34SPEAKER_00: Enjoy yourself and be safe.
- 20:36SPEAKER_01: This has been a Naturally Scott Adventures podcast with Scott Harris.
- 20:41SPEAKER_01: Naturally Scott Adventures is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, and edited by Frank Sierra.
- 20:48SPEAKER_01: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at Naturally Scott Harris.
- 20:55SPEAKER_01: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
- 21:02SPEAKER_01: Naturally Scott Adventures thanks you for viewing and listening to this podcast.