Hunting Spiders For A Living

Spiders are small creatures with eight legs 
that build sticky webs as their homes 
​and use them to catch insects that happen to get stuck.

A Spider Between Two Fortune Plants

They are found almost everywhere:
on trees, grasses, crops, houses
and other structures they find around.
Most of them are not poisonous to humans
although some can bite sharply with their fangs
and cause deaths.

Here in the Philippines,
kids gather spiders for fun
and engage them in fights
just like cocks that fight during a match.
Two spiders are placed on a stick
to face each other in a brutal fight
where one can be wrapped in a web
and die and therefore,
lose the fight.
At times,
a spider drops itself to the ground 
to avoid the match
but it is picked up again and placed on the stick
so that the match can push through
until there's a winner already. 

As time goes by,
matches are no longer just for fun
but also for money
when bets are placed on the two opposing spiders.
What used to be kids' game
has turned into a money-making venture.
Some adults are lured to catch spiders for sale
or nurtured them for future fights
which they hope could bring them financial gains.
This has been going on for decades 
and it's popularity is not dying down.

As more and more kids and adults
gather spiders for fun or for money,
there's this great danger of wiping them out.
Those guys clearly have not realized
the significant damage they do to nature
where nature clearly has a potent weapon
to strike back on humans. 

Spiders easily trap tiny insects on their webs
especially those destructive pests for farmers.
And the more important part
and one that should not be ignored
is when their sticky webs
catch mosquitoes that bring Malaria and Dengue.
Malaria and Dengue are causing deaths
in young and old people alike in numbers
in many parts of the Philippines and other countries.
Patients suffer much
and could not be saved at times.
Who knows,
a person or child afflicted with Malaria and Dengue
could have been spared the danger
if spiders were left undisturbed in their webs. 

It's high time for local governments
to create an ordinance or law 
that prohibits the capture of spiders in any way. 
​We should never again  
lose someone to malaria, dengue and other diseases.