Sick, Injured, and Dying Civet Cats in Filth for Kopi Luwak Prompts Formal Complaint

Sick, Injured, and Dying Civet Cats in Filth for Kopi Luwak Prompts Formal Complaint

Java — People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights charity, has filed a formal complaint with the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Environment after a new investigation revealed that sick Asian palm civet cats with bloody, open wounds languish inside tiny wire outdoor cages encrusted with their own feces on farms in Java that produce kopi luwak—a coffee obtained from the animals’ excrement that’s sold in tourist cafés in Indonesia and exported around the world.

In a heartbreaking part of the investigation, PETA’s undercover investigator found a critically ill civet cat who was too weak even to stand, lying motionless in her barren, squalid cage. The investigator notified the farm’s owner, who said that the animal should be “thrown away.” PETA rushed the animal to a veterinary clinic, but despite receiving intensive care, the civet couldn’t be saved.  Many of the malnourished and undernourished animals had lost enormous patches of fur, suffered from parasitic infestations, and had painful, gaping wounds. One civet was partially blind, but all the animals were still exploited to produce kopi luwak to sell. Several civets paced and spun incessantly inside their barren cages—signs of zoochosis, a psychological disorder caused by the extreme stress, anguish, and frustration of intense confinement.

Undercover footage also shows that one farmer even fed coffee cherries to caged, illegally held binturongs—who are red-listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species—and that the excreted cherries were labeled and sold as civet coffee.

Credit: PETA

 Indonesia is the world’s top producer of kopi luwak. While the coffee is often advertised as “wild-sourced,” farmers have admitted that it would be nearly impossible to produce exclusively wild–sourced civet coffee and that the industry knowingly mislabels coffee from captive animals to deceive consumers and retailers. One farmworker even told PETA’s investigator, “We label this as ‘wild,’ because even though the animals are caged now, they came from the wild.”

“Extreme suffering of captive wildlife defines the kopi luwak industry, as civet cats and even illegally captured binturongs are confined in fetid conditions, tormented mentally and physically, denied adequate care, and left to go insane— if they don’t die first,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA asks consumers to take a stand against this abhorrent cruelty by never buying kopi luwak and educating others about it.”

Despite being a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Asian palm civet cats are typically captured when they’re about 6 months old and given almost nothing to eat except coffee cherries, which leads to malnutrition, skin conditions, and painful stomach aches. PETA notes that caging animals amid their own waste, with no opportunity for freedom or socialization, can weaken their immune systems, creating a breeding ground for zoonotic diseases that can easily mutate and spread to humans. SARS, which has an estimated human fatality rate of around 15%, has previously spread from civet cats to humans.

PETA’s full investigation video can be seen on YouTube and Vimeo. The civet cat rescue video can be seen here.

Broadcast quality footage is available here.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAAsia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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