Here Comes The Civet | Flash Post 448

What’s a civet?

Button, a civet is a small nocturnal mammal with a lean face, a bushy tail and piercing eyes. It is native to tropical Asia and Africa.

But why are you telling me and our readers about civets suddenly? Has there been an incident?

My sister who lives in Kolkata was just telling me about their colony housing more civets than humans. There are civets everywhere—attacking kittens and making a meal of mangoes and jackfruit growing on trees in their complex. She was also complaining about the fact that the fruits couldn’t get distributed amongst members this year because they have all been eaten up by them.

Human greed as usual. Why can’t they buy mangoes and jackfruit from the market and let the civets eat the tree-ripened fruits? But tell me—are civets dangerous? Do they bite?

Remember that an animal bites if provoked. That, too, to protect themselves. Civets are shy and like being left alone. There has been no incident of any human in the complex being bitten.

Where did they come from?

They may have been living somewhere nearby and moved to this complex by accident or because they found those living quarters too small. I am told there are 2-3 vacant apartments in their complex that have been taken over entirely by these animals. And these apartments are so ramshackle that they have no windows and doors which makes it easier for them to move in and out as they please. The civets now live out of those vacant structures, feasting on mangoes, jackfruit and the occasional kitten.

Does that mean these civets will continue to live there and keep multiplying and move to other vacant structures when they find the place too small?

Perhaps. Perhaps like the Pied Piper of Hamelin someone will come forward some day and take them away to drown them in the Hooghly or release them somewhere where they can roam free.

Has no one in that complex felt the need to take action about the civet menace?

Someone actually did and officials from the forest department landed up with traps to capture them. The plan was to place fresh fruit inside the cage so the civets would enter the trap to eat the fruit and get trapped.

Not to kill them, I hope.

No, the plan was to trap them and release them but the plan backfired.

How?

Apparently, 2 huge traps were placed in the complex and the occupants living there kept placing fresh bananas inside the trap everyday but it’s been over two weeks and not a single civet has entered the trap. Not even once.

Really? Does that mean they understand that traps have been laid to capture them or does it mean they are snooty and prefer eating mangoes, jackfruit and kittens and not the humble banana!

Our Messi is as perceptive, if not more. When our home vet comes once every three months to deworm him, he hides in places beyond our imagination. The family still doesn’t understand how he perceives that she will be dropping by because, much before she even rings the doorbell, he does his disappearing act! He once slipped inside one of my kitchen cabinets which a maid, unaware of his antics, opened to keep some stuff inside and emerged much later the same evening, yawing and doing his cat pose unabashedly. Incidentally, I was talking with my sister the same evening I wrote this post and the latest update on the civet gang is that they have disappeared after they saw the cages.

Really? How did that happen? Is it even possible that they had migrated to your sister’s housing colony because the previous one had placed cages there too to capture them?

I am clueless! I mean, really? But how?