A water buffalo that was freely roaming through the backyards of residents in Des Moines just one month ago has found a new home at the Iowa Farm Sanctuary near Oxford, Iowa.

Named Phil, the water buffalo lives there with two other water buffalo, Jane and Sal, who were all to be slaughtered by an Iowa resident with a history of mishandling livestock. Phil escaped confinement during transit, and public outcry landed him and the others in Johnson County.

However, water buffalo are not prevalent in the state of Iowa.

The Iowa Farm Sanctuary is a nonprofit farm animal rescue shelter that provides lifetime housing to the animals it rescues. The farm is located northeast of Oxford and has been open since 2015.

The sanctuary hosts both public and private farm tours and scheduled visits in a seasonal format. Their visiting period ends in mid-October. They care for various farm animals, including pigs, chickens, sheep, an elderly ram, and others.

When Phil escaped confinement in Des Moines, he was featured in several publications while the Des Moines police and Blank Park Zoo attempted to track him down as he wandered through residential areas and parking lots.

Iowa Farm Sanctuary Executive Director Shawn Camp said Phil was found in a bank parking lot. Phil’s then-owner had informed the police and the public that Phil was a dangerous animal, so when police encountered him, they reluctantly shot the animal, Camp said.

Phil was hit slug-round right behind his front left leg. He wandered away, and those in search of Phil believed he was dead, she said.

Two days later, Phil was spotted, and Iowa State University called the farm sanctuary. Once Phil was rounded up, he was evaluated and transported to the farm sanctuary. Surprisingly, the bullet is still inside Phil, but Camp says it has walled off, and no lead is present in his blood.

Camp said the farm sanctuary has a dedicated community of supporters and that, as Phil’s situation unfolded, they were receiving emails about him.

“By Saturday morning, we had an inbox full of messages about him,” she said.

The farm then posted on social media to signal Iowa State that they could take Phil in if he was safely captured.

Media outcry was substantial, Camp said, as shirts sold out for Phil and people got tattoos.

Camp said Phil’s original owner, Prem Nepal, bought the animal and three other water buffalo in Kansas before bringing them to the Des Moines area, where he planned to slaughter them for their meat, an unusual practice considering water buffalo are lean animals.

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Nepal slaughtered one, and Phil escaped in transit before he was to be slaughtered. Phil’s situation landed him in the sanctuary’s care, but sanctuary Animal Caretaker Laura Wiederholt said Nepal did not own the land where he was operating, a fact that led to the sanctuary acquiring the other two animals.

As Phil was running around Des Moines, the landowner discovered Nepal’s practices and evicted him from the property, which left Nepal with nowhere to keep the remaining water buffalo.

Phil was turned over to the sanctuary, where he was reunited with Jane and Sal, who were taken there after Nepal had nowhere to put them, Wiederholt said.

Wiederholt said she and other employees were expecting the worst.

“With the amount of public outcry that happened, it became a minor national news story, and I think public pressure definitely made all the difference,” she said.

Sanctuary Manager Katie Valentine, who handles administrative work and sometimes works directly with the animals, said that media influence helped significantly. She said Phil likely would have been euthanized when he was found if it were not for the expansive media coverage.

Valentine said she and the rest of the staff are glad Phil is alive and healthy, along with his friends Jane and Sal.

“We’re thrilled with the outcome that he’s here,” she said.

The staff at the Iowa Farm Sanctuary are learning the proper care techniques for water buffalo, Valentine said, since they are not native to Iowa.

“We’ve been researching water buffalo care because we’ve had no prior experience with them,” she said. “They’re a hot climate species, so we’ll see how they fare in the wintertime.”

Phil is currently in the farm’s medical wing, a division of its large livestock barn. Within a week, Phil and his friends will be turned out to pasture if his medical evaluations are clear and he has no lead present in his blood.

Phil’s former owner has been charged with having an animal at large.