Celebrating Civets with Coffee & Poop!
- The Civet Project
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
In this special guest blog, we hear from Melisa Bosch Jiménez, Zookeeper from Call of the Wild Zoo in the UK who organised a spectacular weekend of civet celebrations for World Civet Day earlier this year. In this blog, Melisa introduces us to the zoos various viverrid residents- who is your favourite?
Inspiring Pro-Conservation Behaviour at the Zoo
Opened in 2022, in South Woodham Ferrers, near Chelmsford, UK, Call of the Wild Zoo is a relatively new and exciting home to a variety of species including lemurs, parrots, reptiles, crocodilians, penguins, zebras, birds of prey, and more. Many of these species are unfortunately endangered or critically endangered. Over the past few years, we have been able to connect our visitors to many rare and wonderful animals and inspire all ages to care about protecting our planet.
The zoo is constantly growing and evolving, so this year, we looked into bringing more awareness to some particularly underrated species. We are very lucky to house three species of viverrids, Bindi the binturong, Bruno the African civet, and Felix the common genet.
Binti the binturong
Binturongs can be very elusive in the wild but also in zoos, preferring to be indoors or out of sight. Many people have remarked that they have heard of a binturong but have never actually seen one! While she does spend quite a lot of time in her bedroom like most zoo binturongs, Bindi also loves to sit out in the rain and “sploot” up high on a beam when it’s sunny out! Bindi has been a first for many, and she very quickly becomes a visitor favourite to all those who do catch a glimpse of her.
When people see her for the first time, they often ask “What is that?”
This is an opportunity to share more about not only an incredible species, but also the threat of the civet coffee trade. Civets and binturong are captured from the wild using cruel snares to be kept in small cages and force-fed coffee cherries for the production of civet coffee. As the largest viverrid species, binturongs can eat more and therefore produce more to keep up with tourist demand.
The binturong is listed as a vulnerable, so not only is it incredibly harmful to the animals in these situations, it is also illegal to keep them in this way. Bindi is central to our aim of bringing more awareness to the threats faced by wild binturongs. Alongside our “Bindi’s Coffee Shack” educational station, we have been able to encourage visitors to think about the products they consume while traveling, sign petitions to end the sale of these products and experiences, and say no to cat-poo-chino!
Bruno to African civet
As a nocturnal species, Bruno the African civet spends most of his day sleeping. He
camouflages well and is often hard to spot if you don’t know where to look. Keepers love not only to expose him when we hear someone say “Is there even anything in there?” but also to share a bit about a species they have likely not heard of before. While African civets are far less likely to be affected by the civet coffee trade which is more prevalent in Southeast Asia, they are still wild captured and farmed for their musk, also known as Civetone - an secretion that is used as an ingredient in luxury perfumes! Luckily, the rise in synthetic alternatives has helped to protect African civets from this fate.
Felix the genet
Slender and arboreal, Felix the genet is a very interesting sight to see! He is the smallest of our viverrids but he is still full of personality! Felix is very curious and loves eating all sorts of insects. Genets, like most viverrids, are omnivores. But while Bindi loves her fruit, Felix much prefers to sniff out mealworms, locusts, and even cockroaches! People are often not quite sure whether he is a cat, a ferret, a rodent, or something else. We love answering questions like this and describing similarities and differences with other viverrids, and where they can find Bindi and Bruno to learn more.
All viverrids are quite unique and almost always spark great conversations
that lead to visitors learning something new. Inspiring people to care about all of these species is an important part of our work here at Call of the Wild Zoo.
To bring viverrids closer to even more people, from April 4th to 6th, we celebrated World Civet Day all weekend long!
Alongside special keeper talks and a fundraising raffle, our dedicated event space hosted plenty to see and do. For the young (and young at heart!), we had some colouring pages of different viverrid species with fun facts about them and crossword puzzles to test their viverrid knowledge. In the next room was space to sit and watch the Civet Coffee: From Rare to Reckless documentary produced by The Civet Project Foundation throughout the day. Many visitors shared their feelings of disgust towards the exploitation of civets and a desire to protect them. This connection is so important to how we inspire our visitors to care about animals they may have never seen before and take action to protect them.
The most popular activity of the weekend was by far the poo-making station! Here, visitors learned how civets and binturongs help to keep their forests healthy by spreading seeds from the fruit they eat around to new locations, fertilised by their poo. By mixing compost, flour, and water, sprinkled with wildflower seeds, visitors were able to take their wildflower poo home in a little poo baggie to plant in their gardens. Hopefully, while they watch their wildflowers grow, they will remember that time they made poo at the zoo, and learned all about the amazing civets and binturongs!
We continued to raise funds and awareness all month by collecting 10% of coffee sales
towards our donation to The Civet Project Foundation until we got to do it all again for World Binturong Day May 9th and 10th. A few people mentioned they came back to the zoo specifically to celebrate Binturong Day, which was fantastic to hear! Over the entire celebrations, we were able to raise over £500 for The Civet Project Foundation and connect hundreds of people with their mission.
We were very fortunate to give children and adults the opportunity to see these unique
animals in person, while hearing about their importance in a very immersive way. This means these experiences will hopefully stay with them and they may continue to share the message to help end the civet coffee trade!
Huge thanks to Melisa for this wonderful blog and for her and her teams tremendous efforts for World Civet Day and World Binturong Day 2026- it's thanks to the hard work of supporters like Call of the Wild that civets and binturong are getting the attention they need. Together, we will end the cruel civet coffee industry. Learn More:
Take part in World Civet Day 2027
Subscribe to The Civet Project
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