Ashringa: 8 Appendix= the Animal Kinfolk

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ASHRINGAWerehorses for White Wolfs Werewolf: the Apocalypse

By Laura M. Henson 2005

Chapter EightAPPENDIX: THE ANIMAL KINFOLK

In the Beginning there was a wild horse, and that horse was man

-Ancient Babylonian Myth.

Very little has been written on wild horses and most people simply assume that they are similar todomestic steeds. In reality, however, wild equines are as different from tame horses as wolves are fromdogs. As in wolves, wild horses live in extended family groups that have a strict pecking order. The herd isled by a lead mare and stallion. The stallion is dominant in most situations for it is his job to scout ahead tofind good pasture, keep the herd safe from predators, and locate safe water and places to rest. The leadmare on the other hand keeps order in the herd and decides the herds movement, leading the band as itmoves in single file in order of rank as the stallion brings up the rear. Next come the mature mares and theiryoung (foals have the same rank as their mother until they are weaned) in order of age.

Unlike wolves, horse herds are bound together bybonds of friendship as well as family relationships. Tocement herd bonds two horses stand side by side, head totail, and groom each others head and back. As horses cannotreach this area of their bodies by themselves they must learnto trust the close presence of another horse to keepthemselves clean. All herd members will groom other herdmembers and will not groom strangers. Interestingly, ahorse herd may have non-equine members. Many wildhorses have herds that include various antelopes, small wildcats, or even ostriches that repay the herd with using their superior senses to detect predators. Even humansmay be adopted into a horse herd, if a man stands in front of a horse and reaches out to scratch its neck andthe horse reaches out ant begins to groom the mans shoulder than that man is considered a member of theherd. Of course a human will have to inspire considerable trust before being adopted in this fashion by awild herd but Ashringa in human form would probably be accepted without issue.

Rank order is maintained by pantomime aggression, instead of kicking another horse the lead maremay simply lift a hoof or instead of biting she may simply snarl. Other facial expressions include smiling


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(ears up and mouth partially open without showing the teeth) and a variety of angry expressions rangingfrom a closed mouth frown (with the ears back) to a true snarl with the ears back and the teeth showing.Submissive herd members show their status by lowering their head and tail and clacking their teeth.Stallions often show a gesture called snaking that looks ferocious (the male lowers his head and snakes itforward while snarling) but is really a signal for the herd to move because the stallion senses danger.

The mares and their young remain united whether or not the stallion is present. If he dies or leavesthe herd for any reason the normal family existence continues until another male adopts the herd.Sometimes (especially during the mating season, which is February to March in the northern hemisphere) adisplaced young stallion may attempt to take a herd away from another stallion by force. If the old stallionis defeated, the herd accepts the new male without any disturbance to the rank relationships (howeverindividual mares have been known to flee back to their chosen stallion when they have the chance). Unlikemany mammals the new male does not kill the young of the previous male but those young stallions thatare old enough to leave their mother may go with their father when he leaves the herd.

It is commonly believed that stallions drive off or kill their young colts while the young mares stayin the herd but this is a falsehood. In reality the young stallions leave their family groups when they arearound three years old, not because they are driven off (indeed they may be on very good terms with theirfather), but because they wish to start a life of their own. Groups of adolescent males form bachelor herdsof around fifteen animals that have no apparent rank order. This group of friends eventually breaks up asmembers meet available fillies or encounter an unrelated group ofmares and form their own herd.

The young female leaves the family group at an earlier agethan her brother, often during her first heat when she is only fifteenmonths old. Fillies are seldom fertile this first season but the sightand smell of these young mares is especially attractive to youngbachelor males. Females who stay with their families during this timewill find their herd pestered by hoards of lustful teenage males whomay utterly exhaust the family stallion as he attempts to chase themaway from his daughter. Eventually she will leave with one of hersuitors (or her herd will actually take her to a group of bachelors soshe can pick a young one) and send a year or so traveling from one

herd to another until she finally settles down with a male. If themares chosen stallion already has a family than she becomes amember of his harem, if he is a bachelor than she becomes the leadmare of a new herd.

Of course the lifestyle described above differs somewhat according to species. The wild asses andgrevys zebra live in smaller groups and do not migrate when food becomes scarce. Instead the males andfemales separate into same sex herds that occupies different areas of the territory until food is plentifulagain. The courtship behavior also varies with species. In most equines the male prances around the female,tossing his mane and nickering. Grevys zebra and onagers however mark out an area with dung and urineand any female who wishes to mate with him simply enters his territory. In contrast to the lek behavior ofthe previous two species the African wild ass engages in ritual combat, a female not choosing a male thatshe can defeat in battle. Once pregnant all wild equines carry their young for one full year and the newborn

is able to walk within hours of being born.

Some herds have to deal with interference by man. In this case there is a yearly roundup of thehorses and many of the mares and foals are sold at auction while almost all the males are either killed orgelded. The remaining females are set free with only those few males that the government decides areworth breeding. Sometimes the males released are not even of the same breed but are domestic stallionsthat the men hope will contaminate the bloodline. This management often improves the breed (I.e.makes the horses look more like domestic animals) but makes the horses less fit to survive in the wild.Most of the wild equines treated in this fashion are the wild ponies of Europe and America, Mustangs andBrumbies.


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Most people think horses have limited vocalizations but equines do more than neigh. The calls ofequines fall into three basic types: the whinny, nicker, and blow. These sounds correspond respectively tothe howl, whine, and barking of wolves. The whinny (a sound that varies from the neigh of true horses tothe braying of the asses and the barking of the zebras) is a low pitched sound that carries for several milesand is used to communicate over a long distances, to call another member of the herd, to call other herds(stallions will often call to one another so that they will not intrude on each others territory) and to welcomeback missing herd mates. The nicker is a low vibrating sound used by mothers to call their foals and as asubmissive call between adults. The blow is an unusual sound that is made by exhaling sharply through thenose. In pitch and loudness this call is exactly like a dogs bark and is used when the horse sensessomething unusual, to get the attention of the herd, or to signal a neutral state of mind without theaggression of a scream (the horse equivalent of a growl) or the submission of a nicker.

Horses have excellent senses of hearing and smell. They also have the largest eyes of any landmammal and the eyes are placed on the sides of the head, an arrangement that allows the horse to see in awider arc than man. In horses the only blind spot is directly behind the animal. Unfortunately this eyeplacement allows for less depth perception than the eyesight of men or wolves. In addition all equines arefar sighted and have trouble focusing on things that are close up through their distance vision is superb.Horses do see in color but have trouble distinguishing between yellows and greens. Their night vision isequivalent to that of a wolf. All together the vision of horses is better than that of rats so there is no more

need for special vision rules for Ashringa in equine form than there is for Rat-kin in rodent form so noneare given in these rules.

Horses are also among the most intelligent of animals and come out as number six on animal IQtests. In these tests the order of the most to least intelligent are humans, apes, dolphins, elephants, wolves,horses, pigs, goats, cattle, deer, kangaroos, sheep and rats. Donkeys, mules, and onagers are even moreintelligent than true horses so much so that one scientist declared that the dumbest jackass on earth is agenius compared to the smartest horse that ever lived. the IQ of wild equines has never been studied but itis likely that it is closer to the donkey level than that of the pampered domestic horse much as wolves scorehigher on IQ tests than domestic dogs. Even so domestic horses have learned how to open their stabledoors, turn on lights, and even how to line dance to western country music!

The Kinfolk of the Arweharis

They say that no man dared to ride him and he remained forever the spirit of the valley,

saddled only by the sun, moon, stars, and shadow - Abjer, the horse of Antar.

- The Horse of Antar, an African myth more than 1500 years old.

Of all the Ashringa the Arweharis were theleast affected by the ravages of the other shape shifters. The only equine kin of the Arweharis knownoutside of Africa was Grevys zebra which was captured for use in the gladiator arenas of the Romans.With the collapse of the Roman Empire the zebra became regulated to myth, a monstrous beast half horsehalf tiger that no serious European believed in.

When the Dutch settlers of South Africa

rediscovered the zebra they soon began to ruthlesslyslaughter the animals in order to make their hides intoshoes, vegetable sacks, and the connecting bands formachinery. By 1883 two types of zebra were extinct andthe rest severely endangered. Today three zebra speciesare still endangered but the three varieties of plains zebraare the most numerous wild horses in the world, both inthe wild and in zoos.


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Selous Zebra (Equus burchelli selousi): this zebra resembles Grants subspecies but the stripesare narrower, more numerous and sometimes do not cover the belly. Faint brownish shadow stripes maymark the hindquarters. Selous Zebra ranges from the Lower Zambezi River south to the Limpopo River inMozambique, eastern Zambia and Malawi.

Chapmans (or Damaraland) Zebra (Equus

burchelli chapmanni): this zebra ranges from Benguela inAngola, through Damaraland in south West Africa and east intothe Transvaal and Zululand provinces of South Africa. It isanother variable race with brownish black stripes on a creambackground. Most have numerous shadow stripes throughouttheir coats and stripes that do not extend to the hooves. A feware very pale with cream stripes on a white background and un-striped bellies.

The Kinfolk of the Avarim

An abundance of myths link the little horse with the unicorn. Perhaps, as some say, the

pony is really the unicorn minus the horn.

- Gerald and Loretta Hausman, The Mythology of Horses.

The dun and white tarpan had roamed Europe since theice age and was held sacred by the native tribes. In Celtic myththey were the sacred animals of Rhiannon, the Earth Mother, and awere-tarpan was said to have founded the royal line of Russia.The commoners deliberately staked their pony mares in the open inthe hope that they would have colts sired by their wild relatives asthe results were prized for their stamina and intelligence. Thislasted until the sixteenth century when Henry the VIII, king ofEngland passed a law that effectively allowed only the nobility toown horses. This was theBill for the Breeding of Horses that

called for the extermination of any horse less than 14 hands inheight. As a result in England, and to a lesser extent Europe, allponies (including the tarpans) were viciously hunted to nearextinction.

It was during this period of extermination that ponies became associated with the little people. Itwas claimed that the reason there are still ponies in Ireland is because the Faeries took them Underhill untilthe Kings law was changed. Unfortunately the law was not repealed until the nineteenth century and bythen the last pureblooded tarpan had become extinct. Today the Avarim find equine breeding stock in theferal ponies of Europe and North America and in the hybrid tarpans found in wildlife parks and zoos. Inmost of these horses a yearly roundup in which the foals are sold at auction is performed, an action thatmeans that most Avarim are of Homid breed as most Equine Avarim make their first change in captivity.

Plains Tarpan (Equus [Equus] ferus gmelini): the original wildhorse, European tarpans once came in several varieties including aforest species (E..f. silvestris) that gave rise to the domestic cart horseand a desert species (E. f. ferus) which gave rise to most otherdomestic breeds. The tarpan was the horse found in the famous cavepaintings of ice age Europe and was a major game animal, hunted formeat and sport, until the sixteenth century. At this time the value ofponies plummeted in favor of hot blooded race horses and horses thatcould carry heavy armor. As tarpans were notorious for killingdomestic stallions the verdict was death to the wild horse. In 1879


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the last wild European tarpan (the plains species) was killed in a desperate attempt to avoid capture and thelast tarpan on earth died only eight years later in the Munich Zoo. The Polish government in a desperateattempt to preserve the species collected a number of ponies with tarpan blood and set them loose in theforest reserves of Bialowlieza and Popieleno. Many years later several takhi (Przewalskis horses) werereleased in the reserves to try to overwhelm the last of the domestic blood. Today experts argue overwhether the species was preserved or restored but its appearance suggests that it is as pure as its takhirelative. It is a small equine (6 feet long, 13 hands tall, and weighing 750 lbs.) with a lighter build thanthe takhi and with a more flowing mane. In the summer it is a blue grey (grulla) color fading to snow whitein the winter.

Caspian Pony (Equus [Equus] caballus aquilius): this is a form of the domestic horse descended from thePlateau tarpan (E. caballus ferus ferus) and by 3000 BC it was tamed for use by the Egyptian charioteers.In time it was bred for larger size and crossed with other tarpan types to create the Arabian and otherwarm blooded horse breeds and the original strain was believed to have died out. In 1965 a few herds ofthis variety were discovered running wild in the Elburtz Mountains near the Caspian Sea. Captured Caspianponies were soon re-domesticated and can now be found as a riding horse worldwide. Caspian poniesresemble miniature Arabian horses only 9-12 hands tall. In color they are gray, brown, bay, or chestnut.White markings on the head and legs are rare.

European Feral Ponies (Equus [Equus] caballus celticus): these are

the descendants of domestic ponies that returned to the wild during thetimes of Henry VIII. These ponies can be found in semi-wild herds thatare rounded up once a year by the local government and sold at auction.Those stallions considered fit to breed are released while the rest aresold and gelded. Many of these ponies have since become establishedbreeds that can be found worldwide.

European Breeds: Germany is home to two breeds, the Senner which is almost extinct (or isextinct according to some authorities) which inhabits the forest of Teutoberger Wald, and the Dulmenwhich now numbers less than 100 animals and is found in the Meerfelder Bruch reserve in Westphalia,which are 12 hands tall and black, brown, or dun in color. Another breed can be found in the forest ofHojsta on Swedens Gotland Island. The Gotland is common in captivity and is 12-13 hands high and dun,black, bay, chestnut, gray, or palomino in color. France has three breeds of feral pony. The Basque region

has the Pottock which resembles a large with whiskers on its upper lip which protect its nose from thethorny plants it eats and comes in black, brown, bay, chestnut and pinto. The Camarguais (gray, bay, orbrown) and the Merens (which is always black in color) are slightly larger (13-14 hands high) and areespecially loved by the Gypsy peoples.

Brittish Breeds: There are two wild ponies remaining in Britain. These are the Welsh and newForest ponies. The last wild Welsh ponies can be found in the mountains of Wales where several Arabianhorses released into the area have made it a near twin of the Caspian. Another pony is found only in theNew Forest preserve in England. These New Forest ponies are 12-14 hands tall and come in all equinecolors except pinto and tyger.

American Feral Ponies (Equus [Equus] caballus caballu ):the New World also contains two populations of wild ponies,

one in Canada and one in America. They are basically hybrids offeral ponies ofibericus, aqilus and celticusblood.

The Canadian breed is the Sable Island pony. This 14 hands talltarpan like pony is said to be descended from French ponies thatwere abandoned on the tiny treeless Island in the eighteenthcentury. There are currently only 300 Sable Island ponies in theworld and they are gray, black, brown, bay, or dark chestnut incolor.


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More famous is the Chincoteague pony of the United States. These ponies are 12 hands tall andare found only on Assateague Island off West Virginia. According to legend they are the descendants ofCaspian ponies that escaped from a Moorish ship that sank near the Island during the early days ofAmerican exploration. In colonial times Shetland ponies were released onto the island which caused thenative horses to diminish in size, changed the color to pinto, and made the breed more massive in build. Inthe early 20th century the release of several Welsh ponies onto Assateague Island restored some of theoriginal ponys quality. For decades the ponies were rounded up by the volunteer fire department ofChincoteague Island on the last Thursday and Friday in July. The horses were then swum across the narrowchannel between the two islands where the foals were sold at auction. Recently the American governmenthas fenced off the ponies from most of Assateague island claiming that the ponies harm the wetlands. Thismove that has angered the people of Chincoteague who point out that the ponies have lived on the islandfor centuries without affecting the wetlands and that the fence was actually built to keep the ponies fromtheir main grazing land and shelter from storms. This view seems to be correct for hurricanes havedevastated the herds since the fence was built making pony penning day a thing of the past.

The Kinfolk of the Karkadamm

A man said to a wild ass one day Let me ride you and I will feed you, whereupon the ass replied, keep

your fodder and may you never ride me!- from The Book of Abiquar, written in the fifth century.

The wild asses of Arabia are the kinfolk of theKarkadamm. These creatures (often called demi-asses)resemble mules but are a group of species unto themselves.Demi-asses once roamed the entire northern hemispherebefore the end of the ice age restricted them to Asia. In thedays of the Sumerians onagers and their kin were capturedto pull chariots but were so vicious they had to be controlledwith a nose ring. Once the donkey was tamed anyone whostill owned a demi-ass was said to be half assed becausethe onagers were half again harder to control then even thewildest donkey. Once returned to the wild the demi-assessoon became favored game for royal hunts due to their greatspeed, tender meat, and their unique ankle bones which were used to make dice. This hunting was soextreme that two subspecies quickly became extinct and most of the rest are severely endangered. Luckilyfor the proud Karkadamm their animal kin are well represented in many wild animal parks and zoosworldwide.

Onager (Equus [Assinus] hemionus onager): this subspeciesof demi-ass inhabits western Arabia in the form of two races.The true Onager (E. h. o. onager) can be found in North WestPersia, Kasbin, Western Pakistan, and Iran. It is 10-12 handshigh, 6 feet long, and weigh up to 640 lbs. In color the trueOnager is sandy yellow with a white belly and muzzle. Its

mane, tail and dorsal stripe is brown. The Khur (E. h. o. khur)is closely related to the onager and differs in having whitelower legs and ranging from South Pakistan to West India.There are less then a thousand khurs and no more than 400true onagers on Earth.

Kulan (Equus [Assinus] hemionus kulan kulan): this subspecies (and its extinct kin the Anatolian ass [E.h. kulan anatoliensis] which died out in Roman times and the Syrian ass [E. h. kulan hemippus] who diedout in 1930) are sometimes classed as Onagers and sometimes as Dzigettais and sometimes as their own


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restricted to the isolated desert mountains of California and Nevada. In the early 1500s the first Spaniardslanded on the east coast of Mexico and, as the eastern Indian tribes knew nothing of horses, they treated theSpanish horses as supernatural beasts. By the time the first Europeans traveled to the west it had become afact that America had no wild horses so any seen by the explorers had to be escaped domestic steeds.Thus the myth that all of Americas horses died out over 12,000 years age became part of the history booksdespite the insistence of the Indians of Nevada and California that there were horses before there werehorses and the presence of American cave drawings and sculptures in that area of horses that date frombefore the coming of the Spanish!

Today there is conflict between the government, which wants to exterminate the horse (which itregards as a non-native species) from Americas national parks, and the average citizen who sees themustang as the very symbol of the west. The latter recently received confirmation of their view in 1993when miners working in Alaska dug up a mummified horse. Analysis showed that it was over 26,000 yearsold but when genetic tests were done this supposed new species (the remains were dubbedEquus lambi)turned out to be genetically identical to the living mustang! The fight to change the status of the Americanhorse from feral pest to an endangered species is currently being fought by the National MustangAssociation and the Nhrim are in the thick of the battle.

Mustang (Equus [Equus] caballus): the mustang is thedescendant of Andalusian, Barb (both of subspecies

ibericus), and Arabian (subspecies aqilus) horses thatwere stolen from the Spanish by the Apache Indians in1598. As time went on the elk dog (as the Indians calledit) soon became indispensable to the lives of the plainsIndians, a fact that soon got it the enmity of the newAmerican Government. At fist new settlers were simplyencouraged to fence mustangs off from grazing land andwatering holes. Soon the farmers were told to shoot thehorses because they supposedly competed with domesticcattle for grass, fouled watering holes (in reality horses dig watering holes which benefits the localwildlife), and stole domestic mares. Cowboys called mustangers captured the horses and sold them for$10.00 each to the British for use in the Boer War in the 1890s.

By 1925 the U.S. government decided to expand cattle ranching in the west. As an excuse to remove themustang from public land once and for all the government claimed there were now too many mustangs. Inactuality the herds had already dropped from a high of over two million animals to less than a million. Theypassed a law that allowed any unbranded horse to be sold by anyone who captured it. These horses werethen sold for $2.00-$3.00 each to pet food plants. In 1934 congress demoted the wild horse from wildlifeto feral pest and gave permission for them to be rounded up out of the national parks and sold for profit.By the end of the 1950s more then 100,000 mustangs in Nevada alone were killed to make chicken feed.

In 1959 Mrs. Velma C. Johnston, better known as Wild Horse Annie, was driving along a countryroad when she saw a truck leaking blood and gore. Curious she followed the truck to a slaughter house andto her horror saw that the truck was full of mustangs. The wheelchair bound young woman disfigured bypolio filmed the atrocities committed by the mustangers. She filmed them as they chased their quarry inhelicopters while shooting at them to make them run over sharp rocks until their hooves were nothing but

bloody stumps until they finally chased them over cliffs to break their legs. The horses were then tied upwith barbed wire and piled atop one another in the trucks which then carted them away to the renderingplants. Though ridiculed by politicians (who nicknamed the woman Horse-Faced Annie) the public wasoutraged by this misuse of tax dollars and forced the passing of the Wild Horse Act which prohibited thehunting of mustangs with airplanes and automobiles.

Despite the Wild Horse Act the hunting continued for the Act did not prevent mustang hunting onhorseback or the selling of branded horses on public land. During this time many mustangs were captured,branded, and sold to slaughter houses in order to bypass the law. The poaching finally resulted in a massivepublic protest that resulted in the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act that made it a crime to capture,


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brand or kill a wild horse or burro. By now there were less than 10,000 mustangs alive. Nevertheless amere ten years later in 1981 the government claimed there were now 55,000 mustangs and began roundingthem up and putting them up for adoption. In 1990 it was revealed that the adoption program was a shamand that most of the horses were sold to government agents who then sold the mustangs to slaughterhouses. Public outrage was the result but the practice continues. Today there are an estimated 45,000mustangs but most of these specimens have been bred on farms and ranches for generations as cow orrodeo ponies and most contain the blood of domestic breeds. The true wild population teeters at only a fewthousand and only the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Refuge in Montana and the Owyhee Desert in Nevadahave sizable herds. Mustangs come in all horse colors and average 15 hands high.

American Curly (Equus [Equus] ferus przwalskii arcticus): the arctictarpan was long believed extinct when a rancher named Peter Damelerounded up three odd looking animals among a herd of mustangs in 1898.The new horses were much smaller than a mustang with oriental eyes,perfectly round hooves, a double mane and the curly coat of a sheep.Since the Damele family had a Ripleys believe it or not cartoon claimingthat the Russian Bashkirsky horse had curly hair the Dameles simplyassumed that the ponies were members of that breed. Later they wouldlearn that such horses had been reported from America as long ago as1700 and the local Indians had always known of the horses. By 1971 only 20 of these horses were known to

exist and the Damele family crossed these last known Arctic tarpans with mustangs, Morgan, and Quarterhorses. Today the breed has crossbred so extensively with the mustang that it is technically extinct as a truesubspecies. In captivity however the modern hybrid American Bashkir Curly numbers 2,500 members.

Curlys stand 14-15 hands tall and weigh 800 to 1,100 pounds. They share with the takhi theunusual feature of having a mane and tail that is completely shed each year. The mane is always double andthe coat comes in all colors including pinto and tyger. The original coat color of palomino in the summerand pure white in the winter is still common even in hybrid animals. The mane and tail is long and falls inkinky waves while the body fur varies from only slightly wavy in the summer to long ringlets in the winter.

The Kinfolk of the Nimbi

All of a sudden that stone gave a squeal and jumped right in the air, and you may be sure that the old

woman jumped too. But before she had the chance to run, the stone let down four lanky legs and threw

out two long ears and waved a great long tail. Then away it went, squealing and laughing like a naughty

boy.

- the Hedley Kow, an ancient English folktale.

The Nimbis animal kin is the African wild ass andthe feral donkeys (Equus [Assinus] assinus) of the world.While today the ass is associated with stubbornness andstupidity in ancient times the gray-horse was the very symbolof cleverness, trickery, and the faeries. It was the playfulHedley Kow which changed its shape to trick the greedy, itwas Bottom in Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream, andit was Bright Angel the very spirit of the Grand Canyon.

The wild ass originally came in four types of whichthree are considered extinct. The Northern Ass (E. a.hydruntinus) inhabited the entire northern hemisphere fromEurope to California. It became extinct at the end of the ice ageand is known only from fossils. The Algerian (E. a. atlantics)inhabited the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and Morocco. It wasexterminated in Roman times but it gave rise first to thedomestic donkey at least 6,000 years ago. The Nubian Ass (E.


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a. africanus) inhabited Egypt and the Sudan until the late 1980s. Today it can be found only on the islandof Socotra in the Indian Ocean where the last known survivors escaped from a zoo and hybridized withescaped feral donkeys.

Somali Wild Ass (Equus assinus somaliensis): this subspeciesof donkey was so different from its dun-gray relatives that it wasoriginally classified as a separate species. It is the smallest of allwild horses at only 8-10 hands high, 6 feet long and weighingup to 600 pounds. In color it is slate or rose, often with a bluishcast with a white underside and muzzle and with zebra stripes onthe legs. It lacks the dorsal stripe and shoulder cross found in allother donkeys. The Somali originally inhabited Somalia andEthiopia but due to over hunting, the fencing off of wateringholes and chasing the animals for sport the population has beenreduced to only a few hundred found in the deserts of the Sudan.

Burro (Equus [Assinus] assinus assinus): the North Americanburro is descended from domestic donkeys that were released byprospectors and miners during the days of Californias Gold Rush.Its history is similar to that of the mustang including the change in

its status from wildlife to feral foreign species and the removal ofall wild burros from public land. Even the statue of Bright Angelwas torn down from its place in the Grand Canyon and replacedwith a sign claiming that wild burros destroy waterholes and eatthe grass meant for native sheep. Also like the mustang recentfossil finds have caused the public to ask about these policies foran ice age burro was found in 1990 in Californias La Brea TarPits, a find that refutes the governments claims that the burro isnot a native species. The wild burro comes in all donkey colorsthough slate with a white belly, muzzle, and eye ring is the mostcommon. Like its domestic kin most burros have a dorsal cross of dark hair and shaggy coats.

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Ashringa: 8 Appendix= the Animal Kinfolk