Bohus, Lucy and Kitten of Lucy b. 2026-second time documented?
Budapest Zoo & Botanic Gardens, Budapest: We are die-hard Manul or Pallas’ cat lovers who flew to Budapest to check out the grumpiest cats in the world. There were originally 2 — Bohus and Lucy and now they have a newborn kitten, currently un-named. If you knew of their lineage, Bohus is Lucy’s grandfather and if you’re crying foul like we did, one of the sweet staff explained that there are only 4 in the neck of their woods for breeding. Hence the starved gene pool. Due to politics that extend even to the wildlife, the Russian Manuls are out of reach. Inbreeding is sometimes a leaky gene pool — kitty B, his nickname for now, has a birth defect. There’s a medical issue with his left eye.
Both Lucy and Kitty B are kept in a separate enclosure locked up. You can catch their silhouettes, and we truly strained for shots through the fence and another added layer of wood slits. One of the friendly staff saw us waiting for 3 hours to catch glimpses of Bohus, Lucy and kitty B and let us in the inner staff section where there was a tear in the wood slits — we had a small hole and a few spare minutes to snap pictures. Both Lucy and Kitty B are in high spirits, often engaging in spirited play. At some point, Kitty B came very curiously close to us without Lucy being motherly protective. Bohus spent most of his time hidden in his outpost and most of the interactions were from Lucy and Kitty B.
We spent 1.5h combing the zoo and I must say it’s in dire straits. Most of the enclosures are dilapidated, outdated, cramp, small, filthy and it doesn’t feel good to see the animals in there. Some of the animals indicated were clearly gone too. We wished that the Pallas’ enclosure provided better view of the cats, especially Lucy and Kitty B but the whole zoo is so rundown you just make do with it. We wished we had better shots. We have the best zoo turned natural reserve, zoo, conservation in our home country Singapore and this was rather discomforting for us.
Fingers crossed that there is an expansion of Manul breeding pool and politics doesn’t intertwine with the fragile Pallas’ cat lineage. We hope Kitty B pulls through as so many kittens usually perish. Come witness the sweet motherly-child love and bond. It’s the only rainbow at the rundown zoo.
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The little cutie seems to have a problem with his eye :(
Thank you so much for the news about Lucy and her kitten! It’s so lovely that Lucy is playing with the little one — after all, she’s still young herself, and I’m glad the two of them can spend time together having fun 🤗
It’s sad to read about the zoo’s poor condition and the illness of the little manul 😢 I hope the minul will pull through and live a long, happy life 🙏
Thank you for sharing your impressions of the trip 🤗
Oh, good health to the manul kitten! May everything be all right with the little one’s eye
Health to the kitten! Manul babies are so vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses that it’s always worrying for them!
May everything be wonderful for this manul family!
Dear Kim Lee. First- I really appriciate that you travelled this much for our manuls and minul.
But! There are things in yoir article which arw not or partly not true.
The main point is: how could you know that the eye problem is a birth defect? I think the only one who can say something like this is the doctor of oir Zoo. The truth is: yes, our minul has eye problems but he ws checked and there is no problem with the retina it is just a small inflammation. He has doctor's visits and treatment. And: after sleeping he cannot open his eye immidiately but after a while it is almost fully open. So, please, do not handle your oponion as a fact.
In Europe (sadly because of the stupid politics, you are right at this part) it happened more times that manuls of the same families became couples- Bohus' and Borsika's (Bohus' first wife) relatives are to find in a lot of European Zoos. But! There are nowhere problem with the babies which these manul couples get. The grow/ grew up strong and healthy.
Second: what everything you have written about the poorness of the Zoo, isn't valid either, maybe partly, but it also has it's reasons.
Our Zoo is 150 years old, and very big part of the Zoo is under Heritage Conservation, so it is a very complicated thing to get all the papers and peemissions for the renovation works, but the leadership of the Zoo is working on it and there are a lot of works in progress. Most of the enclosures are green with a lot of grass and trees. There are enclosure enrichments, for example toys, climbing frames etc.
Our animals are healthy, happy and I can say (especially about the carnivor area), that our animals are ones of the best trained animals nor only in the region but in Middle and Eastern Europe and theye are also appricciated by Western European caretakers.
Yes, we do not have luxury circumstenses (which you may are used to), but you cannot say our Zoo is poor and depressing, because it isn't.
And- the hidden enclosure for the manuls- yes, it must be renovated I agree with you, and I really hope, ot will be renovated in the near future.
Next time when you text about our Zoo, please keep these facts in your mind. And I am here for informations which are true and valid, you are welcome to text and ask me every time.
I am quite fond of Bohus.
I am also getting more worried about inbreeding, in the USA there is still plenty of genetic diversity which is exactly what conservation should be about. But Europe and Japan are slowly giving up on that promise to uphold that.
Pretty much all Manuls in Japan are now related, it has gotten so bad that Nagomu and Abrikos (which are aunt/nephew) are being placed in the same enclosure. I am not sure if they are slated for breeding, but it is worrying.
When was the last time an international transfer occurred? The last one in my books is Dima and Dersu, which were sent from Russia to Germany pre-2020. The logistics are there, so I hope that perhaps maybe American Zoos can step in and send a few to Europe or Japan to help out with this problem.
I so want sports, culture, and nature conservation to remain outside politics. I think no zoo would turn down the chance for manuls to move around more often, because that ensures genetic diversity. It helps preserve the population. All right, Russia is under pressure right now. All right, America is far away; I think here it’s purely logistics that create obstacles—few people find a long-haul flight easy, let alone a manul. But Japan and Europe could cooperate... I very much hope that India has joined in conserving the manul species (though there are still questions here for now). And I also hope that China will take up the cause; they have a solid material base, but there are extremely few manuls, and these little cats seem to live on Chinese territory too, so the cards are in their hands to preserve them.
As for Central Asia... What’s needed there is not zoos, but more nature reserves.
That’s my opinion.
Kata Száraz, Thank you for the insight! It's great to hear that the minuls eye is taken care of! Do you know if the minul was the only one born to Lucy or were there more but didn't survive? (I know it happens a lot to minuls)
Kim Li, thank you so much for the news about Lucy with her kitten and Bohush! ❤️ Wishing them all immense health and manul joys!
It saddens me greatly that politics affects international relations concerning animal travel and the enrichment of the gene pool! And I would like these relations to resume in the future, and, as before, manul dynasties all over the world to grow richer with new pairs from different countries!
It’s a great pity that sometimes ordinary things turn into hell because of politics; in fact, the topic of manul’s close relatives has long interested me, and I wanted to ask experienced manulovers what the frequency is, what is problematic about it, and how it will affect a manul under one condition or another.
I very much hope that with a kitten with close genes everything turns out, well, simply positive
Dear Kim Li, thank you for your article. We read it with pleasure and reminisced about how we went to Budapest and admired Bohus and Borsika! How wonderfully we spent that time at the zoo!
You were very lucky to be allowed to film in the restricted part of the zoo! I remember how difficult it was to film in that enclosure, closed to the public, while standing outside — we practically got nothing. Manul luck was definitely on your side!
Budapest is a historic city, and as in many such cities, a large number of buildings are objects of cultural and historical significance, and they cannot be demolished, modernized, or even repaired without involving professional restorers and specialists. The same thing happens in Russia at the Leningrad Zoo, where there are a large number of enclosures built VERY long ago, when there were not even any standards for the care and keeping of animals in zoos. But, as far as we know, the Budapest Zoo is working in this direction.
As for the manul population, you are right, and because of population policy, Europe, the USA, Japan, and Russia are now effectively isolated from one another. How critical is this? We have asked this question many times to different scientists. According to them, it is not ideal, and it would be good to fix it, but it is not a catastrophe. How do you tell that this is causing a problem? The population would have to produce a large number of individuals with congenital defects. For example, in the next generation most would have, say, short tails or problems with the development of internal organs. As far as we understand, nothing like that is happening in the population at the moment, which gives grounds to believe that the situation is not critical. Moreover... in the history of zoos, and even in the history of nature, there are cases (and not few of them) when an entire population came from one or several pairs and after a number of generations showed excellent genetic diversity.
To conclude my long comment, I would like to say that the main problem with keeping manuls in captivity right now is veterinary. Manuls have high cub mortality and insufficient immunity. If vaccines against toxoplasmosis are developed, there will be so many manuls that they will be in every zoo, because they are fairly easy animals to keep (apart from veterinary care), and they do not require any special engineering structures in the enclosure or any unusual and expensive feed.
We very much hope that science will be able to find a solution to this problem.
Once again, thank you very much for the article!
Manulizationverified_filled ,
Thank you for the comprehensive answer!
Manulizationverified_filled ,
"Moreover... in the history of zoos, and even in the history of nature, there are cases (and not few of them) when an entire population came from one or several pairs and after a certain number of generations showed excellent genetic diversity."
Cheetahs come to mind here!
As much as I love large litters because it means more minuls, there's something extra sweet and precious when a mamanul has just a single minul that she can devote all her love to. 💚 I hope Lucy's little boy grows up strong under her tender care!