What do you do when a donkey gets loose from its pen? You let it do what it wants. One of the furry creatures got loose on a busy street in Morrilton, Arkansas. It drew the attention of several law enforcement vehicles, stopping traffic while officers tried to corral him to safety. The donkey stood right in the middle of the road, seemingly with no agenda but looking as adorable as possible.
The donkey didn’t respond as the vehicles gathered around him. He stayed calm through most of it, in fact. A man got out of his car and moved in to grab him, and that’s when the rescue operation went down the tubes. The donkey took off from the street and into a neighboring parking lot, pushing him further out of the officers’ grasp.
The Voice of Morrilton (KVOM) later reported that the “escape artist” had been returned to his owner safely. How he got out in the first place has not been established, and the video drew a run of speculation about it. One viewer suggested the footage belonged on “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and they certainly weren’t wrong.
Loose livestock is treated as more than a spectacle in Arkansas. State law makes it an offense for an owner to knowingly let livestock run at large, gives cities the power to impound animals found loose inside city limits, and puts owners on the hook for damage in some circumstances. Donkeys are named in those statutes by their legal term, asses.
What Arkansas Law Says About Livestock Running Loose
As cute as it may be, you can’t just let donkeys or other livestock run around as they please. Under Arkansas Code 5-62-122, a person commits an offense by knowingly permitting livestock in their custody or care to run at large. The penalty is a fine of up to $100 for most livestock and up to $500 for hogs.
Cities are a little different. Arkansas Code 14-54-1101 empowers cities and incorporated towns to prevent cattle, horses, mules, asses, swine, sheep, goats, and similar animals from running at large inside their limits, and to impound any they find. An owner who appears within 24 hours of being notified gets the animal back, after showing proof of ownership and covering the actual cost of its care.
A separate provision, Arkansas Code 2-38-302, requires an owner notified that livestock is loose and trespassing to retrieve it immediately, and it lets the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission impose a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per violation.