EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Asian Palm Civet

Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), Family Viverridae
Salak Palm Orchard, Bali, Indonesia

Explanation:  Sleepy civet.  This week we are at a salak palm orchard on the island of Bali, Indonesia.  This is a family-run commercial enterprise, with an orchard of salak palms.  Salak is snakeskin fruit, indigenous to Indonesia.  It is sweet to taste inside its scaly outer layer, and we enjoyed this family's production of its many forms, including a sweet candy, the raw fruit, hard and crunchy dried chips, and even an intensely vinegary wine made from the fruit.  The plant itself is very thorny, so we had to be most careful making our way through the crop rows.  

But back to the civet!  The species is distributed throughout southern and southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Indonesia.  It is noted as "Least Concern" on the IUCN Red List, although populations are decreasing.  

And here's the rub.  Asian palm civets are coveted for their ... um, ability to generate the most expensive and unique flavor of coffee in the world.  More specifically, so-called "civet coffee," also called kopi luwak, is created when coffee beans pass through the gut of the critter and then the "results" are used to brew coffee.  Which accounts for this particular individual being caged within this orchard.  

For this function, Asian palm civets have been captured and used for such coffee-producing functions, apparently being very popular these days in Vietnam.  However, apparently there is no information or study on the potential impact of such domestic uses on local civet populations.   There are concerns and warnings on such use, and urgings to avoid the purchase of civet coffee.  

We chose to not purchase the coffee, and departed with a better understanding of this unique and potentially disturbing enterprise.