A friendly personality can be described as outgoing, accepting and demonstrating an interest in others. Cleveland Amory named a burro Friendly because she fit those characteristics perfectly. During The Fund for Animals’ 1979 Grand Canyon rescue of 577 burros, Friendly became Amory’s makeshift shadow, following him throughout the corral. Today Friendly is alive and well at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch, where she has resided for more than a quarter of a century. Here is the story of the remarkable burro who adopted Cleveland Amory, maintained an affectionate relationship with him throughout his lifetime, and helped shape The Fund for Animals’ future rescue efforts.
The Fund Airlifts the Burros to Safety
In 1979, Cleveland Amory and The Fund for Animals learned that the National Park Service planned to kill hundreds of burros then living in the Grand Canyon.
The burros, whose ancestors were castoffs from the gold rush era, grazed the canyon and lived as wild equines on public lands. Private cattle and sheep ranchers had long resented their presence, claiming the animals were eating food meant for their livestock. Armed with this anti-burro and pro-ranching ideology and a report from a wildlife biologist who recommended their extermination, the Park Service declared war on the burros. After unsuccessful attempts to run the burros off the trails, the next idea was to shoot the animals from a small aircraft. Amory realized that this would involve widespread wounding and suffering to a large number of burros, while the number of painless deaths would likely be few.
The Humane Society of the United States brought a lawsuit against the National Park Service to prevent the killing. Though there was little hope of winning, The Fund figured that the burros would be safe during the lawsuit proceedings, and there would be more time to devise a rescue plan. Amory began to look for a way and a place to save the burros.
And so it came to be that The Fund made a first payment on what would become Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Texas, as a home for the burros. The plan was that if the lawsuit was lost, an attempt would be made to rescue the burros, and bring them to the ranch for safety. And that’s exactly what happened.
The lawsuit was lost, and all efforts were then dedicated to figuring out how to rescue the burros from the depths of the Grand Canyon. The Park Service pointed out that no other group had been successful in removing the burros, but gave The Fund 30 days to try to rescue 30 burros. Amory personally interviewed and hired helicopter pilots and expert ropers and devised a plan to airlift the captured burros out of the 7,000-foot canyon. The rescue began on August 9, 1979, meeting with many obstacles, not the least of which was the Park rescinding its agreement.
The first day did not begin well, as at the last minute, the Park Service prevented the rescuers from using a wide, tourist road and instead forced horses, mules and riders down a narrow path which, at some points, went almost straight down. Horses slipped and bumped into other horses who also slipped, making it a treacherous journey, but fortunately all the people and animals remained safe.
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