Ginger manuls in the mountains of Turkmenistan
Hooray, we have wild news from wild ginger Pallas’s cats! 🧡😃
Camera traps have gifted us several very valuable shots from Turkmenistan. Manuls were captured in two mountain ranges of the country: the Kopet Dag range, which stretches along the border with Iran, and the Kichi-Balkan range in northwestern Turkmenistan.
The video from Kichi-Balkan became the first camera-trap video record of a manul on this range — one of Turkmenistan’s new nature reserves!
It looks like the ginger manul got caught in a little rain on Kopet Dag range.
The camera traps that captured the Pallas’s cats were set up as part of a large Persian leopard monitoring program. It is carried out by Team Bars Turkmenistan and the Conservation X Labs Central Asia Program with support from Fondation Segré.
But small cats also appear in the cameras in this region. That is why, with support from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and the Pallas’s Cat International Conservation Alliance (PICA), scientists are able to expand the existing camera network.
Today, this network includes around 100 camera traps in habitats of both large and small cat species. It helps scientists better understand where these animals live, how they use their environment, and what condition the populations are in — not only of the Persian leopard, but also of the Pallas’s cat, caracal, jungle cat, and Asiatic wildcat.
Btw, we also have photos and videos on our website from the cameras installed in Central Kazakhstan with your and our help.
Come take a look — https://manulization.com/cameras
Comments 17
Redheads 🤗🥰
In the first video: the little manul is watching the bird, and the bird is watching the little manul 🔥
The soaked ginger one is perfection 😍
Thank you for sharing!
Congrats to camera trap team!
Анна, I like the determination and the gloomy, serious businesslike air in the photo, with which the ginger one walks past the camera 😎
And I’m also completely amazed by the landscape against which the manul was captured! It is unlike the characteristic “manul” scenery of the treeless steppes and foothills of Altai, Mongolia or, for example, Kazakhstan.
Garfield got angry at the rain :D
Marlena S, 😅 😤Hahah!
Marlena S, On this photo a Manul reminds me a Sand cat a bit :)
What joyful news. The gloomy little manul is just adorable
Lovely ginger kitty!! 😍😍
These videos of wild manuls are sooo cool... Stay safe out there, beautiful kitties!!
I didn’t even know they could be so ginger.
A wet reddish one is beautiful. Hug it and coo over it.
I’m always glad when I learn how much is being done to conserve and monitor species. It’s very important! And it gives hope that people are capable of more than just destruction...
Let’s wish the camera-trap network good work. May there be more of them, as well as more wildlife reserves.
Love the determination of the little ginger... Good luck to you wild manuls! Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
RED PALLAS'S CATS ARE MY LOVE, SUCH A JOY TO SEE THAT THEY ARE ALL RIGHT AND THEY KEEP THEIR RED-COATED LINE GOING🥺🥺🩵
Маргарита Абрамчук, Such red manuls live in Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
In the past, manuls of this coloration were even classified as a separate subspecies, the “Trans-Caspian manul” (Otocolobus manul ferruginea), but now this division is being called into question. Many scientists now believe that this is the same Otocolobus manul manul, just with a redder coat.
They do exist after all!)
It’s always a pleasure to meet the lovely red ones again; it would be interesting to learn more about them or about their appearance in the reserves, but free will is better too, my friend!