• Corpus ID: 130168149

Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development The African civet cat ( Viverra civetta ) and Its Life Supporting Role in the Livelihood of Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia

@inproceedings{Taye2009ConferenceOI,
  title={Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development The African civet cat ( Viverra civetta ) and Its Life Supporting Role in the Livelihood of Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia},
  author={Takele Taye},
  year={2009}
}

• T. Taye
• Published 2009
• Economics

Ethiopia is the world’s main supplier of civet musk with international export share of 90 percent and it has a long-lasting history of civet musk trading to perfume industry. Civet musk is collected from civet cats which are classified among mammalian species. Their habitat is mainly Ethiopia, Guinea, the Senegal, and other places in equatorial Africa and rarely found in arid regions. Even though, African viverrids tend to be carnivorous; they show a feeding habit of omnivores. They are nocturnal. They have been kept in captivity for hundreds of years in Ethiopia and most civet farmers keep 10-15 civets in individual cages. Polyestrous African civets has age at sexual maturity of about 1 year and has average life span of 15-20 years. More commonly, litter size is 2 or 3 a year with 1 to 4 kits per litter. Despite its importance in the livelihoods of smallholder producers, mistreatment of civets in captivity has raised a welfare question. Moreover, increasing tendencies of the perfumeries towards the use of synthetic fixatives, poor husbandry practice and the decline in wild population has threatened prospects of the civet industry in Ethiopia. However, opportunities also exist as musk is among rare commodities, the synthetic is not perfectly replacing the natural musk and the existing musk production only covers 22 percent of the demand. It was also identified among potential investment opportunities in Ethiopia. Hence this literature review forwarded some possible recommendations to improve the husbandry practice and tradability of civet musk by integrating development and research works using the traditional knowledge as core player.