A Revised Global Conservation Assessment of The Javan Ferret Badger Melogale Orientalis

In 2008, Javan Ferret Badger Melogale orientalis was categorised as Data Deficient by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, indicating that there was too little relevant information to assess its conservation status. According to the 2008 assessment, its known distribution was restricted to parts of the islands of Java and Bali with no records from Central Java and few, if any, explicitly from the lowlands or far from natural forest. During 2004–2014, 17 opportunistic Javan Ferret Badger records were obtained from various habitats, from 100 to nearly 2000 m altitude. These included four records in Central Java and the adjacent Yogyakarta Special Region, filling in a gap in the species’ known range. West Java records included three locations below 500 m altitude. Several records were from around villages, up to 5–8 km from the closest natural forest, indicating that this species uses heavily human-altered areas. This evidence of a wider altitudinal and spatial distribution, and use of highly human-modified habitats, allowed re-categorisation in 2016 on the IUCN Red List as Least Concern.