Visiting Colorado's only manuls
A FUZZ field trip to meet Olive and Tai Chi at the Pueblo Zoo in southern Colorado.
We covered manuls a lot in the first month of FUZZ — from the manul World Cup, to an unrepentant prisoner in China, to the Manul Working Group winning our January donation.
I had gotten a chance to visit the big collection of manuls at Kobe Animal Kingdom in November, but had never had a chance to see my home state crew. Colorado once housed a ton of manuls — according to Manulization, the Denver Zoo has played host to 23 over the years — but after the two at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo passed away last year, only Tai Chi and Olive remain at the Pueblo Zoo in southern Colorado.
They’re housed in a large enclosure with a lot of enrichment — tons of rocks and tubes, scratching posts and logs to run on. They also have a private area off to the side with a nesting box as an escape — during my hour with them, they ran in and out of that private enclosure.
Of the two manuls, Tai Chi is braver and more curious. He’d often come to the front of the enclosure and pose, while Olive was more furtive and likely to duck in and out of the side enclosure. One of the handlers said that’s because it’s just past their breeding season — she’s more likely to take herself off display.
The comment about breeding season led me to ask the question — is there a chance of kittens this spring? The zoo obviously isn’t promising anything, and breeding manuls in captivity is notoriously tricky. But they did witness the pair hooking up over the winter, so there’s certainly a chance.
The Pueblo Zoo is small — Pueblo itself is small! — but everyone I talked to at the zoo was friendly and seemed deeply invested in the animals’ care. There aren’t a ton of different species at the zoo, and Tai Chi and Olive are among the zoo’s stars.
I’m a bit disappointed I didn’t get better shots of Olive — I didn’t even realize it at the time, but most of the photos and videos were of Tai Chi. I got there first thing when the zoo opened and the manuls were most active, but it meant I only had a short window before their morning feeding. I’m certainly planning to go back, and asked the zoo to keep me updated if there’s a possibility of minuls in the spring. Fingers crossed.
If you liked these photos, consider becoming a free e-mail subscriber to FUZZ! I’m a journalist who’s worked for TIME and Vice and now I cover animals and animal conservation efforts around the world. Every bit of reader support goes to conservation efforts — in our first month, we already helped to fund camera traps for the Manul Working Group and we may debut a manul-specific newsletter soon.
I’m also headed to Mongolia this summer to meet and photograph the wild manuls, so stay tuned for that!