Hunting down the urban civets and their poop!

One of the objectives of my project is to compare the diet of the common palm civet, Paradoxurus hermaphroditus (Pallas, 1777) in urban and forested environments in Singapore. This continues from the previous investigation of civets in Siglap by last year’s honours student, Xu Weiting (also known as the civet girl). You may read more about the findings of her project here.

Common palm civet at Siglap - 25 Oct 2010

Hunting down the urban civets and their poop is a very different experience from doing fieldwork in places such as Pulau Ubin as it involves roof climbing. I am proud to say that I conquered my fear of height for civet poop collection!

Climbing the ladder to the roof with Weiting the civet girl (in blue) - 17 Dec 2010

In addition, tools may also be needed to collect civet scats that are not within reach.

Tools used for collecting scats from the roof top - 9 Jan 2011

Tools used for collecting scats from roof tops - 9 Jan 2011

Collecting scats from a roof top at Upper East Coast Road - 16th Dec 2010

I use a 1.5m extendable household handle to sweep the scat samples into a tray before transfering them into ziplock bags.

Although the urban common palm civets love to defecate on roof tops, they do defecate on other structures such as benches in open areas.

Civet scat found in the Red Cross Campsite - 25 Oct 2010

Civet scat found at Siglap - 25 Oct 2010

I had the opportunity to observe the common palm civets at Siglap which was the study area of Weiting’s honours project. We did spotlighting, by shining light, to find the civets. Spotlighting is a very useful method to spot nocturnal animals during night surveys as their eyes reflect light.

It was an unique experience to observe our native mammals wild and free in Siglap, an urbanised area as it is something that we do not get to see everyday. Although human-animal conflict is inevitable, it is heartening to know that 92% of the respondents who did Weiting’s awareness survey did not deem civets as harmful.

Fear may be the result of a lack of knowledge. Thus, it is important that we learn more about our last urban native carnivore and to increase the awareness of the public.

There is now an exhibition on the common palm civets at Night Safari!