Phil Is Out While Odlha and Khir Prepare for Another Breeding Season Behind the Scenes—Already?!
How to make your boring business trip feel blessed? Add a little detour to visit the manuls at your destination!
I decided to fly to Salt Lake City one day early before my conference so I could visit the manuls at Utah’s Hogle Zoo. I always wanted to visit Hogle Zoo because it is home to some legendary manuls, including Haru and Petenka.
I arrived at the Asian Highlands exhibit around 1:30 p.m., and the only manul on exhibit was Phil. He also has a snow leopard for a neighbor, and right across from his enclosure is Sasha, the Amur tiger. Phil was incredibly active, exploring his territory and enjoying all the little caves built into the walls.
Warning the visitors who said he looks like a monkey:
Around 1:40, the keeper started feeding Phil. She placed his food in different spots throughout the enclosure and then left him to explore and find it himself:
Phil was just having SO much fun!
He clearly loves his enclosure and kept jumping up and down the ladders, through the trenches, and across the rocks. It was so wonderful to see a manul looking this happy and content, just living his best manul life.
The keeper told me that, for now, Phil is the only manul they plan to have on exhibit. Odlha and Khir—the breeding pair—are being kept in a back building, out of public view, as they prepare for another breeding season. This will be their second attempt, and the zoo is taking the breeding program very seriously.
If they are still unsuccessful, Phil may be moved in with Odlha to breed, while Khir would then move out to the exhibit.
For now, let’s keep our paws crossed that Odlha and Khir will have baby manuls soon! 🐾❤️
Comments 9
Thank you very much! It’s lovely to hear the news about Filaris, Oldhu, and Hira! 🤗
What a great business trip that turned out to be! 👍
Thank you so much for sharing your observations! It’s simply wonderful that so many manulovers from all over the world have started sharing their impressions from trips to zoos to see manuls! Besides photos and videos, there is always a fairly detailed account, and we’re all kept up to date on the latest news about how our favorites are doing! Super, thanks to the site, Roma and Vika) and to all manul travelers!
Thank you very much for sharing the story of your trip to see the manuls!
Phil is a very handsome and incredibly active manul, and he also carefully protects his territory! Not all manuls are this active 🔥
We really liked the moment in the video where he made a hissing sound and moved his whiskers. The feeding moment was also really great, especially when he tries to get the food that is lying on the tree 😹
It seems that he has quite a large and very thoughtfully designed enclosure, with several routes and incentives for him to come down!
for a moment there i thought phil was running up to try eat YOU 😂
thank you so much for sharing :)
Great videos!!! You're right, Phil is looking healthy, happy, and quite handsome 😍 (and definitely not like a monkey 😂)!
Wishing for good luck with Khir and Odlha... May next year bring minuls to Utah!!! 🤞
Manulizationverified_filled ,
It is spacious!
How happy I am for wonderful Phil! May he continue to be content with his manul life! Just like Odlkha and Khir! How wonderfully you all described and filmed it, thank you so much! ❤️🔥
Baomi, thank you so much for your wonderful report and video! I read it with immense pleasure! 🤗
Phil is such a cool, active, and, it turns out, talkative cat! 😁
I hope to meet him in catson someday 🥰
By the way, how do they pronounce the name Odlha at the zoo?
It’s a Tibetan name, and it’s rather difficult to pronounce. Once we turned to a native speaker, a resident of Tibet, to understand how it is properly pronounced and what it means. It’s hard to reproduce in Russian or English, but he pronounced something like /uˈɛlə/ (uela) 🤓