Civette Indienne

Small Indian Civet remains widespread and common in India and Sri Lanka (Choudhury 2013, Mudappa 2013, S. Ratnayeke pers. comm. 2007)  and in Bangladesh, where it has recently been camera-trapped in the North-east, South-east and in the Sundarbans' largest mangroves (Feeroz et al. 2011, 2012; Hasan Rahman pers. comm. 2014). Its population status in South-east Asia is less well known than that of some other sympatric small carnivores, because recent survey efforts have mostly not been appropriate for assessing the species. This is well shown by records from Thailand, where in several survey areas with intensive coverage, camera-trapping failed to find the species yet there were incidental records by other methods (Chutipong et al. 2014). Similarly, in Myanmar, Su Su (2005) found that it was the second most common species of small carnivore recorded in Hlawga Wildlife Park in Myanmar, a secondary small isolate of semi-natural habitat in the outskirts of Yangon, a former capital city, subject to little-controlled poaching and other forms of encroachment, where few other species of small carnivore persist in significant numbers. Camera-trapping showed that it is also abundant (by far the most frequently photographed nocturnal small carnivore) in Alungdaw Kathapa National Park (Thaint Thaint Myo pers. comm. 2007), although intensive camera-trapping for Tiger Panthera tigris a few years earlier at this site had recorded the species only twice. This reflected the focus of the Tiger survey on little-disturbed evergreen forest, a habitat little-used by the species in South-east Asia, rather than the edge, disturbed and secondary areas the focus of the latter survey (Than Zaw et al. 2008). The habitat degradation and hunting patterns of these two sites in Myanmar where the species is common are representative of much of non-Sundaic South-east Asia, and incidental records from various other sites (e.g. Duckworth and Robichaud 2005) imply large populations in total in this region, although it is likely that in at least Viet Nam and Lao PDR populations are somewhat depleted by snaring and other forms of hunting. This is also likely to be true in southern China (sensu Lau et al. 2010; Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan), an area where most small carnivores are somewhat to greatly depleted; Small Indian Civet remains one of the most widely recorded small carnivores there (Lau et al. 2010). It is also widespread and common on Hong Kong (Pei et al. 2010). The widespread tendency for camera-trap and spotlight surveys to go to the least encroached habitat blocks, with a focus on evergreen forest, has certainly much reduced the number of recent records of the species from South-east Asia. In Cambodia, where more camera-trapping has taken place in deciduous forest, it is commonly photographed (e.g. Holden & Neang 2009, Schank et al. 2009, Gray et al. 2014). Under-survey of appropriate habitat was suspected to be responsible for the relatively few recent records from Lao PDR (Duckworth et al. 1999) and explains the rather low proportion of camera-trap survey areas in Viet Nam with records (Willcox et al. 2014: Table SOM3; D.H.A. Willcox pers. comm. 2014), and may also have generated earlier remarks such as in Thailand, this species is rather rare (Lekagul and McNeely 1977); in fact, it is common in degraded and open habitats (Chutipong et al. 2014). Similarly, in Java, a survey programme found it in only one area, an agricultural landscape, with no records from forest. There is little information on current status in West Malaysia and Sumatra; these are being dominated, pre-clearance, by evergreen forest would be expected to hold small populations, although these might have increased with recent major deforestation. A collation of incidental records from West Malaysia (Low 2011) had none of this species, despite many of other species from road-sides and degraded areas, from where come many records elsewhere in the species' range. A trade survey of civets at Medan, Sumatra, found none (Shepherd 2008), implying only small, at most, wild populations there.

Considering trends of habitat change, potentially populations will have increased with the degradation and fragmentation of closed evergreen forest across much of the specie's range in recent decades; the ability of the species to take advantage of this will have been offset, in some parts of its range, notably northern South-east Asia and southern China, by increased trade driven-hunting, especially using non-selective methods. Overall the population is likely to be relatively stable.