World’s Most Expensive Coffee "Could Be the Next Source of Zoonotic Disease", Say Campaigners
The infamous ‘kopi luwak’ coffee - sourced from the excrement of shy, cat-like animals called civets - has long been condemned for animal cruelty. Now, advocates fear the trade also poses a “pandemic risk”.
A caged civet on a civet coffee farm. Credit: Amy Jones/Moving Animals
The world’s most expensive coffee has come under fire from animal welfare campaigners who say the trade is cruel and unethical, and, in light of COVID-19, a serious threat to human health too.
Kopi luwak - or ‘cat poo coffee’ - is a ‘luxury’ product that is sourced from the excrement of shy, cat-like animals called Asian palm civets. Chewed, digested coffee beans are taken from the civet’s excrement, which is said to give the coffee its ‘unique’ taste. Prices for a single cup can vary from $35 to $100, with the trade particularly popular with international tourists in destinations such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
Now, a video exposé by PETA Asia not only reveals once again the rampant animal abuse behind civet coffee, but also warns that the trade poses a ‘pandemic risk’.
In new, undercover footage taken on civet coffee farms in Bali, Indonesia, civets can be seen confined to barren, filthy cages encrusted with feces, dirt, and decomposing berries. The shy, nocturnal animals are shown kept mostly in outdoor cages in the sunlight, with no dark, quiet spot to sleep in. Unable to cope with being kept in captivity, the civets are seen exhibiting abnormal behaviors such as biting their own tails, and repeatedly pacing back and forth, indicating severe psychological distress.
And campaigners now fear the trade could be responsible for the next pandemic. Researchers say that the SARS outbreak jumped from civet cats to humans, and more recently, scientists have identified civets as a possible “intermediate host” for COVID-19, one that allowed the virus to mutate and pass from bats to humans.
“The world is already battling a deadly animal-borne disease, and the last thing we should be doing is caging civet cats so that someone can pick through their waste and sell coffee made from the beans found in it”, explains PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “If coffee drinkers continue to support the cruel and dangerous kopi luwak industry, they risk finding themselves on the wrong side of history when the next pandemic hits.”
Despite civets being listed as a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), PETA say that the civet coffee trade is typically capturing civets when they’re around six months old, keeping them in filthy cages, and feeding them a diet high in coffee berries - all just to produce kopi luwak. When the civet cats are no longer useful to the kopi luwak industry, they are sometimes sold to live-animal markets.
This investigation from PETA is just the latest to reveal the coffee trade’s abuse of civet cats. A similar investigation last year, captured on farms in Vietnam by Moving Animals, showed how, unable to cope with captivity, civets are driven to self-mutilate, by chewing their tails down to the near-bone in extreme anxiety and boredom.
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