Wild Horse and Burro

Two volunteers for BLM California, Karin Usko and John Auborn, have done some fun things with their adopted burros.  They are TIP trainers, BLM ambassadors at adoptions, parade participants, pack burro racers, founders of the California Breakfast Burritos (a pack burro training group that runs with their burros in the morning before breakfast), and they sometimes take their burros to the local farmers’ market!

Gathered as yearling in Arizona's Cibola-Trigo herd management area on September 2010, B61AAAAAR, now known as Nestor, was not readily adopted. For the next seven years, Nestor lived in holding pens in Arizona and Colorado. One day his luck finally changed when a Colorado TIP trainer named Nicki Creasey selected him for her Burro Base Camp program.

“He’s going to outgrow the pony soon, and we just don’t have the money for a Jr. High Rodeo horse,” I whispered to my husband as we looked through the panels at a small bay mare with a big head and even bigger eyes. 

The COVID-19 virus and the strict social distancing guidelines over the last several months has not stopped the BLM Nevada’s contracted wild horse facility, the Northern Nevada Correctional Center (NNCC) Inmate Training Program, from doing what they do – training horses and finding them forever homes!

From visiting residents at nursing homes, rounding up cattle on the Bell Ranch in New Mexico and visiting elementary schools to conducting clinics with adopters and potential adopters, Blue has been my best friend, confidant and companion. He is the reason I currently serve as Chairman of the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.