Braying for a miracle: 1,100 join Facebook campaign to save donkey who can be heard two miles away

By CHRIS BROOKE

Most residents in the village of Brierley in Yorkshire are fond of Joseph the donkey, despite his noisy braying at all hours

He's only little but he makes a very big noise.
When Joseph brays, his eeyore reverberates around the village, across the valley... and if the wind is blowing in the right direction, it can be heard in the neighbouring village two miles away.
He does it late at night and early in the morning, often waking residents.
Until now, everyone has accepted the loudmouth ass as a quirk of life in the South Yorkshire community of Brierley.
But a single complaint to the council from an unknown source has prompted an investigation into ‘whether or not the donkey is causing a noise nuisance’.
When residents learned his not-so-quiet life in a field behind the village club could be under threat, they rallied round to launch a campaign to save him.
A Facebook group called ‘Save the Brierley Donkey From Being Shot’ – not that he really faces such a grim fate – has more than 1,100 members.

Joseph has been threatened with eviction after neighbours of his owners Clare and Phil Williams complained to the council about his eeyore

She said: ‘Joseph has a really distinctive loud eeyore. It sounds like someone is being strangled but it’s part of living around here. He makes everybody laugh with his braying, even if it is in the middle of the night.
'He is very noisy, but he certainly doesn’t deserve to be put down or moved out. How could anyone want to get rid of him?
‘Sometimes the noise is a bit overwhelming at 4 or 5am but it’s no different from living next to a busy road or a railway line. You get used to it.’
Joseph’s owners, Phil and Clare Williams, discovered a complaint had been made to the council’s environmental health department when an officer visited last month. Mr Williams, a father of nine, said: ‘He has got a very loud bray. You can hear it over the hill in Grimethorpe, the next village.

Samantha Thompson, left, from Brierley set up a Facebook page called "save the Brierley donkey" to try and stop Joseph, right, from being evicted

‘We don’t know why it is so loud but he is only doing what comes naturally and it can sound different depending on his mood. He brays if he sees someone coming or going to work in the early hours. It’s his way of saying hello.
‘Apparently there has been a donkey in the village for at least 100 years and it is supposed to be lucky.’
Mr Williams has received a warning letter detailing the complaint and the council’s procedure to investigate it. But with the support of most villagers behind Joseph, he believes the complainants will not pursue the matter.

source: dailymail