Civet rescued from JU premises dies

A stray and sickly Indian civet, also known as “gandhagakul”, which was found wandering around the Jahangirnagar University (JU) premises on Monday, died this afternoon (4 July).

Prof Dr Kamrul Hasan of the university’s zoology department, told The Business Standard that the civet died around 1:00pm while under observation at the university’s Wildlife Rescue Centre.

He said, “After rescuing the civet, we contacted the forest department, their forensic lab, and veterinarians. Based on the symptoms, the forest department suspected the civet was most likely infected with rabies or canine distemper, both viral diseases. Therefore, we were advised to keep it under observation, separated from other animals. It died this afternoon.”

Mentioning that the civet ate very little during this period, the professor said they collected samples from its oral saliva and anus, which will be sent to the forest department’s forensic lab to determine the exact disease it was infected with.

Syeda Anannya Faria, general secretary of the Deep Ecology and Snake Conservation Foundation (JU Branch), told The Business Standard that the foundation had arranged to take the animal to a hospital in Mirpur today with permission, but it died before they could do so.

The animal was picked up from the university’s Mir Mosharraf Hossain Hall on 1 July and taken to the Wildlife Rescue Centre located in Savar, near the university.

A video of the nocturnal animal walking around the campus surfaced on social media recently. This sparked various comments and allegations of various development activities of the university administration destroying the habitat of wildlife.