Selling lizards, an odd job for Bogor man

By Joko Sarwono

BOGOR (JP): It's not difficult to spot 52-year-old Taip on a regular afternoon on busy Jl. Suryakencana in Bogor. He's the one carrying a one-meter-long monitor lizard and knocking on doors of Chinese restaurants or shops.

Taip, who is a laborer at Bogor Market, said he is willing to take on any odd job to supplement his meager income as long as he considers it an honest living.

That includes selling biawak, or monitor lizards.

"I'm not ashamed of this job. It's halal," he said, referring to the Islamic term which means religiously permitted.

The reptile is consumed mostly by the Chinese, who believe that it has some medicinal properties for skin problems.

"I have no idea what they do with it. But I know that the Chinese are good with traditional medicine," Taip said. He added, "I wouldn't eat one of those."

Nowadays, he is simply hawking the reptile from shop to shop on behalf of other people who catch it.

Until a few months ago, he was actively hunting biawak in Ciliwung River, adjacent to the Bogor Botanical Garden.

That, as he describes it, is a tough job in itself.

"You've got to stake the lizard out first while it is swimming in the river or basking in the sun on a rock. You've got to catch it at the right time, and that sometimes means a long wait.

"You follow it and wait until it begins to go into a hole it hides in. Once it's halfway inside, you grab it by the tail.

"That's when the struggle really begins. The biawak will pull hard, but you've got to pull even harder. It's amazing how much strength the biawak has, but it will eventually get tired and let you ease its body out of the hole. That's when you grab it by the neck, tie it with a rope and put it in a sack," he said.

Back at home, he takes the lizard out of the sack and ties it to a tree by the river. "I will bathe it and leave it there overnight. No thief would dare steal it," he chuckled.

He takes it around to the Chinese shops the following day.

A biawak sells for between Rp 10,000 and Rp 30,000, depending on how good he bargains with the buyers.

He was doing quite a brisk business catching and selling biawak until he learned, the hard way, about the one occupational hazard of this profession: it bites really hard.

One day in July his hand was severely bitten by one of his catches, and he had to be hospitalized, a trip that set him back a good Rp 237,000, or the price of between 10 and 15 biawak.

Nowadays, he only sells biawak on behalf of other catchers.

"I only carry one at a time. It's hard enough. I had taken two before but they were quite a handful."

The lizard is usually tied and rolled to form an "O" before he takes it around to potential buyers.

Taip has been known in the area as a monitor lizard seller because he has been doing this job on and off since the 1970s.

"It all started when someone just asked me if I would sell the reptile for him. I took it and sold it to a Chinese restaurant. Since then, people in the area have known me as the biawak seller."

Taip said he was also stopped by the police once for carrying the reptile around in public view, but was released when they learned that he was simply making a living selling it.

Is it legal?

Apparently, it is.

At least, the freshwater biawak found in Bogor is not among the protected species of monitor lizards, according to the Bogor Natural Conservation Agency. The varanus salvator is also commonly found in rivers in Java, Sumatra, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, Borneo and Sulawesi.

The conservation agency said the monitor lizards protected by law were the Kalimantan monitor (v. bomeensis), the grey monitor (v. nebulous), the brown monitor (v. gouldi), the Timor monitor (v. timorensis) and the green monitor (v. prosinus).

Sudirman, a staff member at the conservation agency, acknowledged he had a taste of biawak meat.

"A friend who is a good cook once invited me over to try it. It was more delicious than lamb," he said.