Lost Donkey Joins An Elk Herd

He found friends. That nice. But I bet the elks are dumb as a box of rocks and not much on conversation

That donkey certainly isn't getting laid, that's for sure.

[quote] Diesel the Donkey

Didn’t she used to work the door at Cubby Hole?

[quote]Probably one of my wildest hunting trips to date.

A black guy into hunting, you don't see that every day. Deplorable.

What an ass!

I clicked on this thread to post what R5 did.

Also…

Dollface thread.

Donkeys will protect herds - it's a thing.

That donkey got a job and he likes it.

Diesel is living the good life. At least one of the elk in the herd is wearing a tracker, so Dept of Fish and Wildlife may be able to locate/track his movements.

It's wild that Diesel's owner lost him while on a camping and hiking trip. He's a former BLM donkey that got adopted so he's used to foraging and living in the great outdoors.

I love donkeys. I hope no hunter decides to shoot him.

Happy Henry the donkey.

[quote] I love donkeys.

That’s great. I love animals.

Donkeys do NOT mess around.

When Diesel the donkey ran away on a hike near his home outside Sacramento, California, five years ago, his owners assumed the worst.

“He’s not aggressive, he’s a lover,” Terrie Drewry told CNN affiliate KOVR in 2019, days after Diesel’s great escape. “But right now, he’s scared.”

Years passed without a sign of life from Diesel — until earlier this year, when a hunter spotted and filmed a herd of at least a dozen elk in the northern California wilderness. Among them, strangely, was a wild burro.

Drewry is positive that the donkey in the hunter’s video is her Diesel.

“Finally we saw him,” Drewry told KOVR this month after the Instagram video began making headlines. “Finally, we know he’s good. He’s living his best life. He’s happy. He’s healthy, and it was just a relief.”

The Drewry family adopted Diesel from the Bureau of Land Management, and he lived on their ranch in peace for the first few years of his life alongside chickens, a llama and a miniature donkey.

But on a fateful hike in April 2019, Diesel noticed something that spooked him and took off running, dragging Drewry’s husband Dave through the bushes behind him, she told KOVR at the time. For weeks they searched for Diesel in the Cache Creek Wilderness, a rugged area northwest of Sacramento made up of nearly 30,000 acres. They thought they spotted him on a trail camera and once found some tracks that may have matched his hooves, but they never found him.

Enter Max Fennell, a professional triathlete who occasionally hunts in wild California with a bow and arrow. On a hunting trip in March, Fennell stumbled upon the elk herd — and was stunned to see a donkey among them.

Drewry suspects that, if the donkey Fennell spotted is indeed Diesel, he’s merely doing his donkey duty and protecting his deer friends.

“They learned to get along and be each other’s family,” she told KOVR.

I've read that donkeys are extreme pack animals and in some countries it is illegal to own only one. They really need company for their mental health.