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VIDEO AT LINK................... March 20 (UPI) -- The Nashville Zoo announced the birth of a rare spotted fanaloka, a Mdagascar-native species also known as the Malagasy civet. The zoo, which is the only facility in the United States to keep fanalokas, said the male pup was born March 10 and does not yet have a name. The zoo previously welcomed the birth of a female fanaloka, named Pepite, about two years ago. She was the first of her species to be born at the zoo and among the first to be born in the country. The new arrival is being...

PORTLAND, Ore. - This coffee can cost as much as $700 a pound and $80 a cup, and it is processed through the digestive system of a cat. It's said to be the most expensive coffee in the world and it was served up Friday at the International Coffee Expo in Northeast Portland. An Indonesian company brews it here as it is done in cafes in Jakarta.  "It is very delicious, very smooth and so luxurious," said Valerie Sindal, director of sales and marketing for ValBeMar Specialty Coffee. Coffee cherries are eaten by Civet cats, processed through their digestive...

TAMPA, Florida – A Florida coffee house is brewing up a buzz by selling the rarest type of coffee in the world—‘Cat Poop Coffee’. ‘Cat Poop Coffee’ comes from the Indonesian Civet which resembles a cat and eats coffee cherries off of trees. The beans end up in the animal’s feces and the next step is to sift them by hand. The end result is a coffee bean considered a delicacy and only 500 pounds are made each year. The coffee is one of the rarest in the world. The Tampa coffee shop, shown in the attached video, paid $190...

A gourmet coffee blended from animal droppings is being sold at a London department store for £50 per cup. Jamaican Blue Mountain and the Kopi Luwak bean are used to create Caffe Raro which is thought to be the most expensive cup of coffee in the world. Kopi Luwak beans are eaten, then passed, by the cat-like Asian palm civet, and sell for £324 a kilogram. All profits from sales of the coffee at Peter Jones in Sloane Square in April will go to Macmillan Cancer Support. Ripest berries Asian palm civets, which live in the foliage of plantations across...

THE World Health Organisation said yesterday it had anecdotal evidence that exotic civet cats, suspected of spreading the SARS virus, were being clubbed to death in China. It warned that such slaughter methods might exacerbate the spread of SARS. "We've heard that some of the animals have been clubbed," Beijing-based WHO spokesman Bob Dietz said. "This puts all the people (involved in killing the civet cats) at risk." China ordered the mass destruction of civet cats - considered a delicacy in south China's Guangdong province - after confirmation this week of the country's first case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome...

lood tests of people who worked with exotic animals in markets in southern China show that a significant proportion apparently had been infected with the SARS virus, suggesting that some people may become infected without becoming ill, World Health Organization officials said yesterday.The findings are from two separate studies of workers in markets in Guangdong Province in China, and they strengthen the SARS link between animals and humans, the officials said in interviews.At the same time, scientists at Hong Kong University announced last night that they were developing what could become the first experimental vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome....

Civet cats, now suspected of being at the center of the global SARS outbreak, have long been considered exotic cuisine for those with adventurous taste buds in southern China's Guangdong province. The mammals with cat-like bodies, long tails and weasel-like faces are regular captives in live animal markets, such as the Hua Nan Wild Animal Market in Guangzhou, and are prized dishes in wildlife restaurants. Crammed into small cages with not enough room to stretch their legs, the furry creatures are dragged out and beaten to death in front of customers to ensure freshness when buyers order one up. They...

HK reports two SARS cases, two deaths; coronavirus traced to civet cats  Hong Kong said Friday another two people have been infected with SARS and two more deaths have been recorded, marking the 20th day in a row that the territory's daily infection figures were in single digits. This brought the total number of deaths to 260 from 1,724 infections. The latest fatalities from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) were two women, aged 57 and 89. Health officials said the 89-year-old woman had chronic illnesses, while the 57-year-old woman was a resident at the residential Amoy Gardens, one of the...