Back in the late 80s, the government had a program to allow people to adopt a Death Valley burro. This was not just "spnsorship", where you send in a check and get a nice certificate; the government would actually ship the beast to you, all expenses paid.
I was living in the DC area at the time, and my officemate, who had a farm in east VA, applied for a burro. Sure enough, the burro shows up, and I got weekly burro reports for months. It seemed to work out ok; she had horses and mules and such, and the burro apparently settled right in.
The officemate moved to Florida, and was thus lost to civilization for all eternity, so I don't know what ultimately happened to the burro. From what I've heard of Florida, though, the poor animal probably ended up as gator bait.