Have you ever heard of an animal called "Binturong"? A Binturong, which is also called a bearcat, is an animal that looks like a bear, a cat, and a monkey. It has a bear-like face, but it belongs to the civet family in terms of scientific classification. It also eats animals like earthworms and lizards in the forest, but Binturong's favorite is figs. Binturong has a unique characteristic. It has a buttery popcorn smell from its tail. This smell is used by Binturong to send signals, and it is actually the smell that comes from Binturong's urine. It is really amazing that not only do humans smell like buttered popcorn, but scientifically, the same chemical found in buttered popcorn is detected in Binturong's urine.

Many people say they want to raise Binturong because of its cute teddy bear-like appearance. In fact, Binturong is an endangered species.

Binturong, which has been designated as a vulnerable species (VU) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is currently experiencing a continuous decline in its population and is at high risk of facing serious extinction in the next few years.

As the existence of the mysterious animal Binturong became known, more people wanted to raise it, and the number of people who illegally caught Binturong also increased. As a result, Binturong has decreased by about 30% in the last 30 years. Like other civets, Binturong is also used to produce civet coffee. Humans who want to make a profit from the expensive civet coffee hunt Binturong. In addition, illegal poaching continues to take place to trade Binturong's fur, meat, and bones.

In addition to direct capture, Binturong is facing extinction due to indirect human impacts. Despite its body length of up to 1m and tail length of over 70cm, Binturong is an animal that mainly lives in high trees like monkeys and walks on branches with balance. However, Binturong is being threatened as the trees it can climb are disappearing due to human development. Binturong, which lives in tropical rainforests or deep mountains in Southeast Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, has become an endangered species as its habitat has been lost due to the destruction of tropical rainforests in the area.

To prevent the extinction of Binturong, Palawan Island in the Philippines has secured over 40,000 hectares of forest to protect Binturong as well as various wild animals. This habitat, called Cleopatra’s Needle Critical Habitat (CNCH), is said to benefit local indigenous people as well as wildlife.

ABConservation, a non-governmental organization, is conducting fundraising activities to protect Binturong and designates the second Saturday of May every year as Binturong Day to conduct conservation campaigns. Hopefully, with the attention of more environmental groups, we can protect the mysterious animal Binturong.