“When nothing goes right…go left”
About a week ago the mother of the civet cats who’d taken up residence in a pot on our balcony was hit by car and died. I had been dreading something like this happening as rearing very young wild animals is both difficult and time consuming but, as the baby civet cats were de facto guests in our house, there was no choice.
The area where I live is a development that considers itself to be ‘eco’ , although an eco development of a rainforest is an oxymoron if there ever was one. Roads bisect the land and, as no consideration has been given to how the animals are meant to cross these roads safely, there is a fair amount of road kill.
The incident made me think of the eco-highway (another oxymoron) which is nearing completion in the wildlife corridor that separates Taman Negara national park from the Main Range of hills that form a north-south spine along peninsular Malaysia. This corridor is a bottleneck between these two areas and a highway bisecting it was clearly going to create problems for animal movement between them.
Whether this highway was necessary or not is a question in itself but there has, at least, been an attempt to provide some crossing route for the animals.
The idea was to have an ‘eco-highway’ whereby parts of the highway are elevated so that the animals can pass beneath. A fairly optimistic notion as I imagine a lot of animals are not going to be particularly keen to walk beneath a highway as heavy trucks thunder above them and street lights glare down.
To make matters worse there are large areas of palm oil plantation on either side of sections of this ‘eco’ highway and this unnatural habitat is, again, likely to put animals off making a crossing that will, to them at least, appear to traverse treacherous and alien terrain.
It’s a shame that the whole effort is likely to be redundant unless the surrounding palm oil plantations can be restored to true forest that the animals feel safe in.
Perhaps the problem stems from the mistaken classification of palm oil plantations as forests and thus whoever planned this ‘eco’ highway didn’t see an issue….but palm oil plantations are not forests, they are, as the name explains, plantations of a single species of palm….even the animals know that.
Hello Paul,
When I read your previous article on civet cats, I knew it was bad news.
Jungle animals belong in the Jungle.
As mother is a full time job, I can’t agree more with you, it is not something do for fun.
Just learned Orang Aslis sometimes keep them as pets.
Keep up posted about this family Paul, I hope they’ll survive.
Thank you for helping them.
Hi Wawa,
Thanks for the support and sorry for slow reply but the civet cats are keeping me busy! I totally agree with you that wild animals belong in the wild and don’t really make good pets (although you are right that the Orang Asal sometimes keep them as pets) and the hope is that they’ll leave for the jungle when they’re older but have the option to return here (and get fed!) if they can’t hack it!
Cheers!
Paul
Hi Paul,
Kind of sad hearing the mom died.
I’m sure the babies are in your good hands.
Are there any Wild Animal Rescue to help you out?
Hi Shafie,
Many thanks for the support and it was very sad that the mother died. The animal rescue over here is mainly for dogs and cats (and they are overwhelmed with abandoned animals) and there’s no organisation I know of that would welcome civet cats. I think their best bet is to stay here as we are surrounded by jungle and, hopefully, when they’re older they’ll leave home and return to the wild. The idea is to keep an area for them here that they can return to and feed them if they can’t make it in the wild unaided.
…we’ll see how it works out!
Cheers!
Paul
Hi Paul,
Well you could breed them and feed them coffee berries and harvest ‘kopi luwak’ to cover your expenses, lol.
Jokes aside, I wish you and your new extended civet cat family all the best 🙂
On another note, have you ever thought of using a house cat (that recently had kittens) to act as a foster mom? There has been some videos of cats fostering animals that are not from their species.
Anyways, I look forward to more videos and updates of the little fellas in the future.
Hi Shafie,
Many thanks for the comment and apologies for my slow reply but I’ve been away over the Christmas period.
Yes, kopi luwak could be a idea (although I have to say I’ve never really understood the appeal!)
We have six house cats here but not sure that they’d relish the prospect of fostering the civet cats who are now larger and very keen on biting anything they can (including me). My biggest concern is that they seem fearless of the dogs (or anything else for that matter) which is bit worrying. Anyway, they’re all doing well and have a new cage that we built outside and gives them plenty of space.
Cheers!
Paul