While Jakarta residents may have been caught up in a snake scare, Aat Sambas has been thinking in terms of his culinary business. The recent discovery of many snakes, particularly cobras, in residential areas in Greater Jakarta, means Aat has not had to worry about supply for his Tenda Dua Cobra, a tiny food stall serving snake-based dishes, including satay, soup or fried snake.

His restaurant in the Pasar Lama culinary area in Tangerang, Banten, is a make-shift tent with four tables. Next to one table, there is a metal cage where 25 Javan cobras are cooped up.

One recent Wednesday evening, there were 10 diners, including Euis Sutanti, her two children and two neighbors.

“It tastes just like chicken but the texture is more like catfish,” said Euis, who developed a taste for snake just a month ago.

“I heard it’s good for your skin,” she said, adding that her favorite dish is fried snake in galangal seasoning.

Most dishes in the restaurant use python and cost Rp 24,000 (US$1.70) per plate. Cobra sells for Rp 60,000 for its blood or bile, and is only slaughtered upon order.

In Aat’s stall, diners get to pick their own cobra.

“It is usually used to treat skin problems, asthma or diabetes or to increase stamina,” Aat said.

Slamet Raharjo, a reptile expert from the School of Veterinary Medicine of Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University, said snake meat contained 30 percent protein, 2 percent more than beef or lamb. With a much lower fat content, snake meat can improve blood circulation and nutritional intake to provide more energy.

Snake bile performs better than that of humans and can help improve organ functions and treat degenerative diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease, Slamet said.

He cautioned about preparing the snake dish. “It should be cooked at a high temperature for a long time to kill the germs, unless the meat has been frozen first,” he said.

Aat said that he regularly ordered snake in frozen form from Kebumen, Purwokerto and Brebes in Central Java, or Karawang in West Java or Ujung Kulon in Banten.

But the current snake scare across Greater Jakarta has been a boon for Aat’s culinary business.

In the last three weeks, he has been receiving an additional supply of snakes, at a rate of two to three every day, mostly pythons, but at times also cobras. They are brought by residents, housing complex security staff and construction workers who have found them in housing areas like Poris Plawad district, Mekarsari district, Ciledug subdistrict and BSD city.

This year’s unusually prolonged dry spell triggered a rise in the snake population in Greater Jakarta because it meant more eggs were laid to hatch once the rainy season began. Now with the arrival of rain, the snakes have come out of their hiding looking for drier and higher areas.

In the first two weeks of December, the Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency received at least 45 reports of cobra sightings. In adjacent Bekasi in West Java, five mother cobras and 40 hatchlings were caught in 20 separate reports, while in Bogor also in West Java, 30 baby cobras measuring 30 centimeters were found in the Royal Citayem housing complex.

The exact number of snake sightings and catches could be much higher since not all of them are reported to the authorities.

Some people offer them to restaurants but the price has fallen as it follows the current snakeskin export price, Aat said, and now a python will fetch Rp 50,000 a meter against Rp 150,000 a year ago.

The most popular snake eateries in Jakarta are found in the Gajah Mada and Mangga Besar areas in West Jakarta, but unlike in Tangerang, diners must be prepared to fork out more. Typically, a 1-m cobra goes for Rp 100,000, compared to Rp 60,000 at Tenda Dua Cobra.

Arbi Krisna, the former the head of education, training and rescue at the Aspera Reptile Community, said the 1999 Law on wildlife utilization allows the slaughtering of snakes for consumption, but under the supervision of the Environment and Forestry Ministry. In 2018, for example, it set a quota of 146,350 snakes for Central Java, West Java and East Java.

Snake restaurants, however, are not using up all the quota. “Snake consumption is still not common while snakes reproduce so quickly,” said Arbi.

One possible reason for its low popularity is because Islam, the majority religion in Indonesia, forbids eating snake meat.

Ahmad Munawir, the head of the Jakarta Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA Jakarta), regrets people’s decision to take the snakes to restaurants rather than to the proper authorities.

“It’s better to give the snake to us so we can release it into its natural habitat. They’re sentient creatures, too, they deserve to live in peace,” he said. (aly)

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