Yesterday evening, on the way back to the lodge after an otherwise great safari trip, Uyai spotted a civet! We often spot one in this area, but this time, this young male civet stayed on the dirt track, very close to the game driver, to the delight of all our guests. Civets are extremely shy, so one usually only sees them running away, ie. one gets a back view and nothing else. But this time it was different! Hopefully this young male will get used to the vehicles, as it seems already, and we will be able to see him many more times. We suspect he might be living near the Boma, because Craig has seen lots of tracks of a young civet in that area. And we spotted him nearby yesterday as well. Here the photo!

A bit of background information about the civet: there are over a dozen sub-species of civets, but the African Civet, such as this one, are the most known. Civets are famous for their musky scent, which is used in the perfume industry. Often civets are held in captivity for the harvesting of this scent, but this is nowadays considered cruel (which it is!), and the practice is dying out. Large perfume producers, such as Chanel, have declared already over a decade ago, that they have replaced this scent by an artificial substitute. So that’s good news.

Many civet species are endangered, especially the ones in Asia. The Hose’s Civet, for instance, living in the mountains of Borneo, is considered as one of the world’s least known carnivores. Civets are shy and elusive, so to see one from so close, in the wild, is really rare, in fact totally exceptional.

One more thing: Many call it the “Civet Cat”, but civets are not cats. They are closer related to mongoose.

To finish off, 2 more photos. Very cute animal. 🙂