Seven minuls caught on a trail camera in Tuva, Russia! 😻
An incredible luck smiled on the scientists and staff of the Ubsunur Hollow Nature Reserve in the Republic of Tuva: a trail camera installed near a rocky den took a video of seven manul kittens at once!
At the time of filming, the little ones were no more than three months old, and were playing with each other.
Now we will monitor this area and protect it even more carefully. We will try to establish year-round observation here and follow the fate of the kittens
The camera was installed as part of a manul conservation programme run by the Irbis Association and Mars, with the participation of scientists from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
This is one of several manul monitoring programmes currently operating in Russia. Together, these programmes help researchers estimate population numbers and monitor the overall status of the country’s manul population.
May everything go well for this magnificent seven! 🧡
Source: https://altayirbis.ru/news/record-number-manul-kittens-russia-wildlife
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Seven! Seven wild manul kittens! Goodness, it must be so hard for their mother to feed this whole brood 🥲 I hope the entire family makes it through the winter and that no one harms them 🥺
Seven minuls and in the wild too! 😲 That must be one stressed mamanul!
I wish good health for these precious wild minuls! 💚
Prrrrrrrrrr.
I feel happy watching theese news! Good luck to the manul family!
I wonder, does the program include feeding them somehow? It’s hard enough on their mother as it is.
What a wonderful mother, she saved the little ones! Wishing them all successful fattening-up and a carefree winter!
Maarja Liit, I’m wondering the same thing—couldn’t they be given a rat or two?
Maarja Liit, I completely understand how you feel! I want to feed and hug every animal too!❤️
But it is still important to say that it is best not to feed wild animals in the wild (unless it is some kind of emergency, where the animal is injured, exhausted, etc. and needs urgent help), because regular supplemental feeding can alter an animal’s natural behavior (especially when it comes to young predators still gaining life experience).
An animal may also begin to associate people with food and gradually lose its natural caution, which can later play a very cruel trick on the animal, because, as you know, people come in all kinds.
Animals in the wild are often “lured with food” for observation and photography (and for hunting too, of course). Yes, the photographer gets a beautiful shot, but at the cost of interfering with the animal’s natural life—that’s how it is 😐
Vadim Kirilyuk once wrote that the number of kittens in a litter is a good indicator of the available food supply. If a mamanul could “afford” to give birth to seven and even raise them to their feet, then most likely it is a good year and there is enough food 🙏
May winter be generous to these beauties too!