Rowel Zse 33, said he was earning more as a snake hunter than
a hawker of selling vegetables or gocery
''I used to earn P200 a day. Now I earn more than that--as much
as P1,000 daily,'' he said.
He was quick to add that as a snake hunter, he was no longer at
the mercy of loan sharks to whom much of his earnings from
selling vegetables went.
''I don't need to loan money to grow (in) my business. I only
bank on sheer guts and talent,'' he said.
Like most snake hunter they are either former farmers or street vendors who found their new means of livelihood more lucrative.
Philippine spitting cobras (Naja-naja philippinensis).
The Philippine spitting cobra is classified by the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources as an endangered species.
Personnel from the DENR swooped down on a snake specialty
restaurant in Manila's Malate District last week and confiscated
more than 70 live Philippine cobras.
The seizure, reports said, was the biggest haul of the DENR in
its campaign to stop poaching of Philippine cobras.
Owners of snake shops in Concepcion buy live cobras, known
locally as camulalu or camamalu, at P200 a kilo but sell these at
more than twice their buying price, mostly to Chinese and
Korean restaurant owners in Manila.
Larry Bulanadi, a snake hunter who has been known as ''Cobra
King of the Philippines'' years ago when he won in a noontime
game show's ''Super Pinoy'' contest, owns a snake shop in
Concepcion.
His wife Emily has been managing the shop since Bulanadi
started working at the Serpentanum Anti-Venom and Vaccine
Production Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
He was so famous as a snake hunter that Saudi Arabia's King
Fahd himself sent for him, shopkeeper Mercy Santos told the
