Free the manul!
China sends a manul to jail (briefly) for cattle crimes; an introduction to the newsletter and what I hope we can achieve together.
Good morning — after a really stormy weekend, it’s a chilly 9 degrees in Colorado today. Shoveling out the driveway yesterday, I noticed a red-tailed hawk peering down at me from the roof. Closer inspection showed he was making sure I didn’t take his meal — some unfortunate rabbit that he had captured and flown up to the roof.
It’s not quite the same as a lucky rabbit’s foot, but I’m still choosing to take it as an auspicious start to the FUZZ newsletter.
He’s innocent, I promise.
AFP News has the story (and video!) out of western China (translated):
The Turgun Border Police Station in Koktokai County, Altai District, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, recently received a report that a "cat" was attacking livestock in the cowshed. The police officer who rushed to the police determined that it was a national second-class protected wild animal, Manul cat, and conducted a simple inspection. After confirming that the Manul cat was not injured, it was decided to hand it over to the local wildlife nature conservation association.
Manuls (also known as Pallas’s cats) are the thought to be the oldest living cat species, with a genetic line extending back nearing 10 millions years. They’re also the only cat with round pupils, which gives them an expressive and somewhat permanently disgruntled look that’s led to a fairly massive online following. For example — Roman Paulov and his wife, Vika, have created a website, Manulization, that maintains records, photos and genealogy for every manul in every zoo around the world.
In the wild, manuls live in the steppes and high mountain plateaus of the Himalayas and generally prey on small rodents called pika. They’re also remarkable adapted to cold weather — they have the longest and densest fur of any cat species, and can endure temperatures up to -58°F.
One thing they can’t do, however, is take on a cow. As far as anyone’s been able to gather, this one strayed into a cattle enclosure, scratched a farmer who apprehended it, and then was turned over to local wildlife officials. While the initial reports indicated it was handed over to a wildlife sanctuary, later on over the weekend it became clear it was released back in the wild, unharmed.
Manuls aren’t endangered, though they do receive significant protections in China and elsewhere. They can’t be hunted without a special license, nor can they be killed for use in the fur trade or traditional medicine. But still, habitat loss to mining and livestock use, attacks from dogs, and rodent-control measures that reduce their ability to feast on pika do pose a threat to the manul. And they’re particularly susceptible to toxoplasmosis, a bacteria that’s very common in domestic cats but that the manul has no natural defense against. It’s a particular problem for zoos that house manuls, as the consequences can be deadly.
Hopefully this Chinese manul learned to steer clear of cattle in the future.
Quick Links!
The Smithsonian announced their two new giant pandas, Bao Li and Qing Bao, will be unveiled on January 24. The Chinese government loans pandas to the US, and those agreements have to be occasionally renewed. When US-China relations became strained at the end of 2023, China recalled their pandas back home. But in 2024, China both delivered a new set of pandas to the San Diego Zoo (they first debuted in August) and delivered Bao Li and Qing Bao to Washington, DC in October.
Florida added 1,335 acres to the Volusia County conservation area, with the support of Republicans and governor Ron Desantis. This helps preserve a natural floodplain and habitat for one of Florida’s largest concentrations of bald eagles. (Florida generally has one of the largest bald eagle populations in the lower 48 states.) The conservation area has grown by 5,536 acres since 2012.
Wildlife researchers in India released a new study on what it’ll take to preserve the range of the clouded leopard, a vulnerable species of big cat. Just as with a lot of big cats, their range is increasingly fragmented creating disconnected groups of cats that struggle to maintain populations. By creating connected corridors across national lines, the clouded leopard would have a better chance of survival. (Similar efforts have been used in the past to help tiger populations.)
Welcome to FUZZ, and a little about me.
This is the first issue of the newsletter! I’m Dan Fletcher — I used to write for TIME Magazine about 15 years ago and I also helped found a Substack-like product called Beacon Reader back in 2013 that raised a few million dollars for journalists and activists. I tried to start a news brand inside Facebook in 2012, created a bunch of growth-hacky Facebook pages to try to push good sources of news into disinformation communities, worked as the general manager of VICE News, and a few other things along the way.
It’s a set of experiences that have given me a lot of ideas on how to build and grow a media brand, and I’ve always been passionate and curious about wildlife so I’m excited to start reporting on it for you. You can expect a mix of original reporting, trips, interviews, round-ups and more — I’ll figure out the right mix as we go, and please send me any feedback for things you’d like to see more. I’m not a scientist and I won’t pretend to be — if I make an error, please let me know!
The goal of FUZZ isn’t to bum you out that the world is burning or beat you over the head with guilt — I think the existing conservation space often does that well enough. But what I hope this newsletter can achieve is getting you genuinely excited about the weird and wild world of animals while also connecting you to groups that are doing a good job helping to keep animals safe and healthy in the wild.
Each month, I’ll pool any profits from your paid subscriptions and make a donation on our behalf to worthy conservation causes around the world. And as this community grows, I hope we can make these funding decisions together.
See you Wednesday.