Tijuana’s ‘Zebras’ – Or, Putting The Zonkey Into Its Donkeys! – ShukerNature

 

In 2004, when I visited the
city of Tijuana in Baja California, Mexico, just across the border from San
Diego in California, USA, I saw one of the famous ‘Tijuana zebras’ (aka
zonkeys, but not to be confused with true zonkeys, which are zebra x donkey
hybrids – click here for a ShukerNature survey of zonkeys, zorses, and zeedonks). Needless to say, these eyecatching equids are not real zebras, but
instead are donkeys humanely painted with stripes using women’s hair dye to
make them look like zebras for photo-opportunities popular with tourists –
except with me, that is.

Bizarrely, I failed not only to
take a single photograph of the one ‘zebra’ that I saw, but also to seize the opportunity
of buying an official posed photo of me with it (my only excuse for such remiss
behaviour being that back then, I didn’t realise just how iconic and unique an
aspect of Tijuana these animals are), and even today, over 16 years later, I
still regret not doing so. Fortunately, I have at least been able to purchase online
some excellent vintage picture postcards depicting various Tijuana ‘zebras’
from bygone decades, so these will have to suffice. One example from my
collection opens this present ShukerNature blog article, and here’s another
one:

 

But when (and, above all, why!) did this decidedly
strange tradition of painting stripes on donkeys in Tijuana begin? (Indeed, it
is a tradition so intimately associated with this city that even its professional
basketball team is named after these curious creatures – the Tijuana Zonkeys.)

Recollections
may vary (as a certain majestic lady apparently once said about an entirely
different matter…), but the majority of sources that I’ve read on the subject agree
that it arose during or immediately prior to the World War 2 period of the
1940s. Ever since gambling in Mexico had been declared illegal, in 1935, the
resulting closure of Tijuana’s casino, hitherto a great tourist draw, had
created a great void that somehow needed to be filled if tourists were to continue
visiting the city, but how?

 

Remembering that a pair of donkeys with carts that used to
stand outside the casino had always been a favourite, frequently-photographed
attraction, some of the city centre’s enterprising youths hit upon the money-spinning
idea of bringing in donkeys with richly ornamented carts that tourists could be
photographed with, but this time for a fee.

Sure enough, they proved very popular and
also very lucrative, becoming a common sight along Avenida Revolucíon
(Revolution Avenue), extensively frequented by partying tourists, but there was
one major problem. Back in the 1940s, standard everyday photography was almost
exclusively of the black-and-white variety, which meant that Tijuana’s predominantly
unicoloured, monochromatic donkeys hardly showed up in the
resulting photographs. If only there was a way to give these animals more visual
contrast.

 

Two early b/w photos (the second one sepia-tinted) of Tijuana ‘zebras’ from 1944 (public domain)

There is much controversy concerning who
originated the novel idea of painting black stripes on Tijuana’s tourist-magnet
donkeys to achieve the required level of contrast for photographic purposes,
but, regardless of his identity, by the end of the 1940s Avenida Revolucíon was
home to a number of these home-made zebras, and a new Tijuana tradition was
duly born. Moreover, to optimize the level of contrast exhibited by them, the
donkeys usually (though not always) have a white powder applied to their coats before the black
stripes are painted on, as was the case with the individual that I saw (click here to view a short video on YouTube of a typical Tijuana ‘zebra’).

By the late 1970s, no fewer than 25
‘zebras’ with their owners could be encountered in Avenida Revolucíon, each
with their own specific allocated spot for attracting tourist trade. Yet by the
time of my visit in 2004, this number had decreased significantly, due in no
small way to the precipitous fall in the number of tourists visiting from
across the border in the USA since the dreadful events of 9/11. A decade later,
moreover, according to a 2013 report issued by Washington D.C.’s National
Public Radio, only three Avenida Revolucíon ‘zebras’ remained.

 

In an attempt to elicit increased
interest and city pride in its faux zebras, a year later, in 2014, they were
formally declared part of Tijuana’s cultural heritage by the Cultural Heritage Council
of the State of Baja California in northern Mexico. Nevertheless, its decision was
revoked in 2017, following protests from animal-rights activists, with the
unnamed federal judge responsible for this legal reversal ruling that because living
entities are not real estate, they cannot be considered part of Tijuana’s
cultural heritage. That decision does not prevent those few ‘zebras’ still
existing from continuing to ply their trade, via their owners, on Avenida
Revolucíon, although the activists have stated that they would prefer
life-sized fibre-glass replicas to be used, rather than the living animals
themselves.

At present, the survival of Tijuana’s
longstanding tradition of its tourist-touting pseudo-zebras remains uncertain.
I’ve never read or heard about any claims of their owners mistreating them, so
as long as they are indeed well cared for and not stressed by exposure to
tourists, it seems a shame if these celebrated equine ambassadors for Tijuana were
to disappear from Avenida Revolucíon where they have brought such colour and
unique appeal for so long.

 

Finally: although the Tijuana ‘zebras’
are not cryptids, I can exclusively reveal here on ShukerNature a direct link
between them and cryptozoology, courtesy of the delightful photograph presented
below, which was snapped in 1974. Depicted with his family during a
holiday in Tijuana, wearing the sombrero labeled Pancho, and aptly garbed in a
striped sweater, the little boy sitting upon a Tijuana ‘zebra’ grew up to
become one of today’s most famous cryptozoologists. Any guesses as to his
identity?

In fact, it’s none other than my
longstanding friend from Texas, Ken Gerhard, who very kindly emailed me this family
photo for my article when I mentioned to him quite a while ago now that I was
planning to blog about the Tijuana ‘zebras’ on ShukerNature. Thanks Ken! And
now, at last, I’ve done so.