Civet education

Last week when out observing slow loris Charlie who was moving out and about all over the forest, we nearly stepped on a civet trap. We have never seen a civet trap before. We deactivated it and went back the next day. For the next few days, it was still there and we went round to deactivate it. Though not aimed at lorises, lorises often walk the path and could easily get caught in the trap. We decided to focus our week’s education efforts on civets. Monday morning we split the LFP team into smaller subgroups. Charlotte and Aconk went to talk to the farmers and provide information about the work that LFP does and the importance of civets to the local ecosystem. Pak Dendi and Josie went around looking for traps and thankfully didn’t find any more. All traces of the other track had been removed as well. Remaining team members Denise and Adin went on a mission to find missing loris Tahini. The overall feedback was extremely positive. People seemed really happy to hear about civets and like the civets being on their farms. Thankfully none of the farmers around our field site had set up the trap to catch civets.