Civette des Célebes

The overall population status of Sulawesi Civet is very poorly known. Published records are very scarce (Wemmer et al. 1983, Wemmer and Watling 1986, Lee et al. 2003) and only 28 museum specimens are known (Veron 2001). Unpublished records and reports include: (1) Bakiriang Wildlife Sanctuary, central Sulawesi: a single individual observed by night in 2013; (2) an unconfirmed record from Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park in 1993; (3) Feruhumpenai-Matano Nature Reserve; and (4) Karaeng-Lompobattang Protection Forest (P. Wood pers. comm. 2014, Jihad pers. comm. 2014). There are also unconfirmed reports (rare sightings by local people) from a forest near Tomohon, 25 km south of Manado (J. Tasirin pers. comm. 2014) and from the Togian archipelago and Buton island (see the Geographic Range section).

Sulawesi Civet is evidently rare in, or locally absent from, some areas within its general geographic range. In the well-studied Tangkoko Reserve, it was not found in the only camera-trap survey to date, of about 1,000 camera-trap-nights over 0–1,000 m a.s.l. (J. Brodie pers. comm. 2015). In many years of intensive wildlife watching, Jukber Lambaihang (pers. comm. 2015) has never seen Sulawesi Civet at this site, although he has observed it in Lore Lindu National Park. Similarly, R. Hutchinson (pers. comm. 2015) has seen it only in Lore Lindu NP. In five full nights of spotlighting on foot on Sulawesi, V. Dinets (pers. comm. 2015) never found the species, and in 3–5 hours of night driving through forest, he had only one record: near Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park, 1–2 km from the park office. In south-east Sulawesi, Lee et al. (2003) found it in three of the five survey areas in which they camera-trapped, suggesting that it could be relatively widespread there, although they had only one record at each. Their encounter rate has been considered to suggest that the species is scarce in this part of the island, but it is difficult to make any deduction about abundance from this information. Lee et al. (2003) reported that they set their camera-traps 1–1.5 m above the ground: this is so much higher than is ideal for surveying small carnivores that it is likely to have depressed encounter rates, and in the same programme, they photographed Malay Civet only once, and Common Palm Civet not at all (I. Hunowu verbally 2008). The low total number of Sulawesi Civet photographs might simply reflect the low total effort. This was given as 23,485 hours (= 9,653 + 5,187 + 8,645, in three areas), which equates to 979 camera-trap-nights. Comparison with figures for palm civet camera-trapping in a range of sites across Myanmar (Than Zaw et al. 2008), where camera-traps were set 40–50 cm above ground, and thus more photographs of civets would be expected, gives no support that the results in Lee et al. of ‘only’ three photograph events indicate rarity of Sulawesi Civet. In roughly 27,700 trap-nights in Myanmar, there were 36 photograph events of Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphoditus, ten of Masked Palm Civet Paguma larvata and none of Small-toothed Palm Civet Arctogalidia trivirgata (which is almost wholly arboreal). For easier comparison, Lee et al. (2003) found Sulawesi Civet at 3.0 events per 1,000 trap-nights, exceeding Myanmar’s figures of 1.3 Common Palm Civet events per 1,000 trap-nights, 0.36 Masked Palm Civet events per 1,000 trap-nights, and 1.6 palm civet events (all species combined) per 1,000 trap-nights. If Sulawesi Civet is more active on the ground than are these palm civets, then a more relevant comparison with Myanmar would be with the ground-dwelling Large Indian Civet Viverra zibetha; Than Zaw et al. (2008) recorded this at 4.6 events per 1,000 trap-nights, only at 150% the rate at which Sulawesi Civet was being camera-trapped by Lee et al. (2003). This difference could simply reflect that in the heights at which the two survey programmes set their camera-traps. But in fact all evidence (notably Wemmer and Watling 1986) suggests that Sulawesi Civet is significantly arboreal, meaning that ground-level camera-traps (at least, non-baited ones) might well be less effective at detecting it than at finding Viverra civets. Moreover, the exact microhabitats at which camera-traps are set can have huge, though rarely quantified, effects on the frequency with which individual species are photographed. With only three events, the Lee et al. (2003) records do not allow any strong statement of the species’s abundance in this area. The considered opinion of Wemmer and Watling (1986: 8), based upon more field contact with the species than any other Western biologists, was that “in the Lore Lindu Reserve Macrogalidia was common”. Extrapolating this single-site conclusion to the whole island would be rash, but it underlines that there is as yet no real evidence that the species is genuinely rare in the areas where it occurs; nor indeed is there any that it is not rare. The paucity of records in trade or villages (see 'Theats') suggests that the species might be rare; although its part-aboreality might insulate it somewhat from the largely ground-operating traps used in most hunting on the island for animals of this size-class and above, it evidently spends significant time on the ground as shown by the finding of footprints by Wemmer and Watling (1986) and, perhaps, the camera-trapping of Lee et al. (2003), although it is not stated in the latter whether lures, which can bring arboreal animals to the ground, were used. Activity on the ground exposes it to various forms of trapping (see 'Threats'), and although in theory possible, it is implausible that bycatch Sulawesi Civets were abandoned in the field, it is more likely that few are caught.

There is no direct information on the population trend, but assuming that this species is indeed strongly reliant upon old-growth forest (see Wemmer and Watling (1986)), forest change can be used to suggest what might be the broad trend. According to Abood et al. (2014), Sulawesi lost about 20,000 km² of forest between 2000 and 2010, mostly in areas outside industrial concessions for timber, pulp and paper, oil palm and mining, According to the Ministry of Forestry (2011), Sulawesi had 101,172 km² of forest in 2010, of which 39,151 km² was primary, 61,854 km² secondary, and 167 km² planted forest. A total of 20,000 km² of forest loss between 2000 and 2010 would indicate that there was about 120,000 km² of forest in 2000, and that Sulawesi had lost 17% of its forest in this 10-year period. Assuming that these rates remained similar over a 15-year window (i.e., the last three generations, with one generation taken as five years; Pacifici et al. 2013), this indicates a decline in habitat of about 26%. Any losses within remaining habitat will be additional to this; given the level of conflict with livestock around Lore Lindu documented by Wemmer and Watling (1986) and increased fragmentation of Sulawesi’s forests since then, these losses are likely to be driving additional declines (see the Threats section).