The story of a Sri Lanka civet rescue

We recently received a query from Tusita, who has found a baby civet which was only palm-sized, excluding its tail, in Sri Lanka. The baby has just opened its eyes and Tusita has been feeding it milk several times a day and he even had to wake up at 4 am to feed the hungry baby! Tusita asked how would one know when to start feeding the baby civet fruit pulp such as papaya and apples, so we shared that baby civets generally start to take fruits when their eyes are opened.

According to Tusita, he and his dog found the civet baby through its loud calls and saw it lying at the foot of a large tree in the morning . He estimated that the nest would have been at least 10m tall and was amazed that it survived the fall. He quickly took it away for fear that a dog, macaque, mongoose or even a snake would get to it. For this same reason, he felt that putting the baby back to where it was at night was not feasible due to the presence of other animals, so he will be taking care of it until it is ready to be released back to the wild.

Civet Cat 1

Check out the baby’s white-tipped tail, and the three stripes on its back, a typical characteristic of the common palm civet. It is starting to have its characteristic black facial appearance too!

Palm Cat 1

We are glad that Tusita is providing care for this young baby and is dedicated to raising and returning it to the wild. We hope you will grow up strong and healthy, cute little fella!

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Sylvia & Zipper the rescued common palm civets

Since a year ago, the civet team has already started to observe documentation of successful common palm civet rescue cases in Singapore.  The common palm civet is one of our many native wildlife and it can be found in both forested and urban environments. The life of an urban civet is however no easy feat, especially when they face threats such as being trapped. Fortunately, some of these trapped civets are given a new lease of life due to the effort of the 24-hour wildlife rescue work by ACRES and we have previously blogged about cases handled by ACRES as well. Even though this is an old post, dated back to August 2011 but it is always encouraging to see successful rescue cases.

ACRES - Rescued civet

In May 2011, Zipper, another rescued common palm civet was featured as the rescue story of the month!

Zipper the civet (ACRES)

Even though the common palm civet might be shy and secretive in nature, they can still be found in our backyards and even co-exist with us. They are one of our last wild native animals left in Singapore, so let’s treasure and appreciate them.

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