For the past few years, urban civet studies have been conducted mainly in the eastern side of Singapore, along Upper East Coast Road, with sightings concentrated around Siglap, Opera Estate, Bedok and Tanah Merah areas.

Since 2011, we have been getting civet sightings in another suburban area in Singapore from a special group –Tanglin Halt Wildlife Watch. This is a group of wildlife enthusiasts who live in the Portsdown, Tanglin Halt & Wessex Estate area who occasionally spot civets in their neighbourhood. Of the several photos of the Portsdown civets being posted, one of the post was of a civet hiding among the vegetation and another was a unfortunate roadkill.

Genevieve Yeo, a new Honours student, will be embarking on a project to study the ecology of the civets at Portsdown. This is important work as we need to fill in the knowledge gaps in order to better understand these urban animals. Are the Siglap and Portsdown civets similar in terms of diet and activity patterns? All these and more will be investigated by Genevieve!

What is the civet eating? The diet might vary from site to site. (Photo by Genevieve Yeo)

Photo of Genevieve’s first civet sighting in Portsdown. If you see civets around Singapore, please let us know!

Research work on urban fauna is highly vital as firstly, the information contributes to the management of the species including human-civet conflict and secondly, it helps in the management of the habitats that they live in. If you spot a civet, we really appreciate if you drop us a sighting record here or if you are interested to learn more about research, you can sign up as field assistant for Genevieve’s surveys.