Oh, what a happy life a “Mexican zebra” must live! Born as super boring burros, they’re forced to stand still for hours while someone with a tube of dye and a toothbrush paints them striped so that they can pose in the hot sun with small, screaming children and drunk Americans on Spring Break. But, alas! That charmed existence may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to drug cartel violence:

But spiraling drug violence in this city of 1.4 million across the border from San Diego, including shootouts along Tijuana’s main thoroughfares, has the burros’ owners fearing that their trade may become the next casualty.

“Before this attracted a lot of people,” Victor Manuel Reyes said on a recent afternoon as he waited for customers along a nearly empty Revolution Avenue. “A lot would say ‘Oh look, the Mexican zebras!’ They’re famous. A lot of people around the world would get their picture taken with them.”

Lately, Reyes said, business has been going down “like the Titanic.”

We’re not quite sure what to make of this. On the one hand, we hate animals. On the other hand, we personally commiserate with the plight of Mexican donkeys - spending hours in makeup, posing, performing in donkey shows… So we can’t feel too sad about their owners not being able to parade them around. You know what they should have instead? Those awesome little machines you always see at zoos and aquariums that make animal figurines out of wax! That way, they only animals that’s harmed is that one stupid child that ends up eating the figurine.

Tijuana’s painted ‘zebras’ threatened [Yahoo News]