Musk is what has made the African Civet so economically valuable to countries like Ethiopia. The African Civet will secrete the musk from the perineal gland underneath their tails. For thousands of years, people have been collecting the musk to sell and trade in the perfume industry. The volume of musk produced by an African civet is proportional to the animal’s body mass and a large male can produce as much as 6.4 grams of musk every 5 days. The refined compound, civetone, was first identified in the Civet musk in the 1920's and although it has been artificially produced since then, high quality perfume producers still prefer to use civetone. Ethiopia produces 90% of the world’s civet musk. In their early history, civet musk was so expensive and valuable that it was used as currency and was valued above gold. Allegedly, the Queen of Sheba presented civet musk to King Solomon as a gift. Today, African civets are kept in captivity by civiculture farmers who keep them to collect their musk. It is a very important part of African civiculture farmer’s culture and economics, but unfortunately animal abuse has been recorded in this business. The civet musk is sold around the world, but 85% is bought inside of France. The U.S. does not buy the musk. (Abebe, 2000) The musk is also used by humans for medicines and has been also used for medical research (Gunderson, 1976).

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