“It’s really a quaint and distinctive neighborhood tradition - something that sets the neighborhood apart.” “It’s hard to describe why it’s a thing, but it is,” Anderson says of the attachment he and others have to the donkeys. On occasion, they will make appearances at local grade schools and kids’ parties. Every Sunday, Perry and Niner are trotted out to meet visitors young and old. The tradition continues, thanks to the generosity of current landowner James Witt and the volunteers who oversee the feeding and welfare of the donkeys. They are the most recent in a long line of donkeys who have hung out here since the early 1930s, when their turf was part of a pasture owned by the late Stanford physicist and gentleman farmer Cornelis Bol. Palo Alto’s treasured donkey, Miner 49er, diesīorn in 1994 and as photogenic as ever, Perry - short for Pericles - lives with fellow donkey Miner Forty-Niner (known as Niner) behind Bol Park. Palo Alto’s famous donkey returns home - with a new buddy “They shortened his legs a bit and mixed traces of Eddie Murphy’s face in with his, but he’s still Perry.” “You can look at those movies and really tell that it’s him,” says Don Anderson, one of the two dozen or so volunteers who tend to the animal. Perry’s claim to fame? He served as the model for the happy-go-lucky Donkey - voiced by Eddie Murphy - who stole scenes and hearts in the wildly popular computer-animated “Shrek” films. None of them, however, wears the label as well as Perry, a miniature donkey who resides in Palo Alto’s Barron Park neighborhood. Some celebrities are known to be complete asses. Palo Alto's movie star donkey Perry Close Menu

Donkey and shrek