1/12/2004: Civet cat kill - Page 4

Undertoad · 01-12-2004, 11:23 AM

If it's an animal pic, and it's not Friday, it's not gonna be good. And this is not good. This is part of the effort to prevent the spread of SARS in China; they're killing all the civet cats that were expected to become food. They think there might be a disease connection.

It looks like this is not the normal way of killing them; this one tried to escape, says the caption, and so it wound up getting a sudden death by bludgeoning.

Weird fact of the day, then: historically, a lot of perfume has been produced using the "skunk-like spray" of the civet cat. This gunk was actually collected from little sacs under the cats' tails. You could say "ewwwww" and try another brand, but that one might be made from the peri-anal glands of the beaver, or "ambergris" which is basically whale vomit. But nowadays, apparently the animal-derived scents have man-made chemical reproductions which are cheaper to produce. Leave the cats and their poor little glands alone.

01-12-2004, 11:23 AM	#1
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	1/12/2004: Civet cat kill If it's an animal pic, and it's not Friday, it's not gonna be good. And this is not good. This is part of the effort to prevent the spread of SARS in China; they're killing all the civet cats that were expected to become food. They think there might be a disease connection. It looks like this is not the normal way of killing them; this one tried to escape, says the caption, and so it wound up getting a sudden death by bludgeoning. Weird fact of the day, then: historically, a lot of perfume has been produced using the "skunk-like spray" of the civet cat. This gunk was actually collected from little sacs under the cats' tails. You could say "ewwwww" and try another brand, but that one might be made from the peri-anal glands of the beaver, or "ambergris" which is basically whale vomit. But nowadays, apparently the animal-derived scents have man-made chemical reproductions which are cheaper to produce. Leave the cats and their poor little glands alone.

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