Goodbye my musang

It's been several months since we found Bindi in her cage holding on to her favorite toy as if in deep sleep. We tried to wake her up, but her sleep was eternal. It hit me so hard, I am only now, 7 months later, able to even write or talk about it without tearing up.

Bindi still has some stories to tell, since she isn't here, I will tell them for her. She was an Ambassador of her kind for a while and taught many school children that it's not ok to kill and eat musang. We took her to the local elementary school here in Luzviminda, when she was about 2 months old. The children loved her and she went from child to child smelling them and letting them pet her.

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The kids couldn't get enough of Bindi!

Bindi was the first wild animal rescue I had here in Palawan. She became my mascot and best friend, staying with me on my desk or nearby in my home office. I loved her so much. I will always miss her. She was not the easiest creature to live with. First off, civets are nocturnal. Their teeth and claws are sharp like needles. My shoulders, hands and arms were always covered in scratches, just from her walking on me. I finally found a way to trim her nails while she was sleeping. It made her walking all over us much more comfortable. When we would want to rest at night, she was bouncing off the walls and getting into everything, so most nights, we had to put her in her large cage. There was the rare occasion when she would not do that, but it was rare, and then she would curl up under the blankets at my feet. I loved rubbing her fur with my toes, her fur was so soft.

The school teacher got as much a kick out of handling Bindi, as the children!!!

In although the masked civet is called Common Civet...if people don't become aware of them, they might not be so common some day. In Indonesia, it is legal for people to own them, and they are being hunted so much that they not be around in the wild so much. In Indonesia, there are few of them now, they are under threatened status.

Here in the Philippines, coffee growers would find their skat and then wash and sell it at Kapé Luwak, or civet coffee, now many unscrupulous growers are caging them in horrible conditions and force feeding them the coffee cherries. The whole point and value of wild civet coffee, is that wild civets only eat the most ripened berries, hence a flavorful coffee bean. That is no longer the case.

Many people in the Philippines in the provinces, catch and eat them.

Please, respect all of Palawan's wild life. In this day and age we cannot afford to lose any more animals. Each animal has it's job in the wild.

The boys especially were eager to touch and hold Bindi, the masked civet.

The children were so curious about the civet, Bindi. They had never seen one
before.

Many of the children went home and shared their experience about the musang. They have all told their parents to not harm them. Hopefully they listened.

I am able now to say, Goodbye Bindi. I will always love and cherish you and the lessons you left behind for me to pass on to others. Thank you Bindi.