Born a Forest Man

Since childhood,animals have been a fascination for Pilari-Seth,who has worked in the forests of Vidarbha,mostly tiger sanctuaries,for almost 80 per cent of his tenure. His access to the Central Railway library,as his father was with the railways,exposed him to books on Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson,and he fell in love with forests and animals,he recalls.

Whenever he saw a tiger or any other animal on some calendar,he would wait for the month to be over to ask for the picture. Seeing his interest,a family friend advised him to apply,when the forest department invited applications for Range Forest Officers (RFO). He got the job.

He joined in 1977 and was posted in Bhamargadh division of Gadchiroli. He did a Wildlife Management and Crocodile Breeding course in Hyderabad and was shortly posted at Tadoba sanctuary,which then had a crocodile-breeding programme.

Pilari-Seth recalls an incident during night patrol along the Tadoba Lake,when he spotted a just-hatched crocodile that had lost its way. Locating the nest revealed 10 more eggs were hatched. The mother had perhaps abandoned the babies. Leaving them there would have killed them. It was decided to take them to the breeding centre,where they were taken care of. They were released into the lake later.

In 1998,he got the Kailash Sankhla National Fellowship under which he did a research on man-bear conflict (involving Madia-Gond tribals) in the Melghat forest range in Vidarbha. He concluded the time bears stray from forests was a factor for the conflict. “Sloth bears attack in the evenings or early mornings when they roam for prey.”

His colleagues reveal he used to sit on a tree for hours to track a female bear that had delivered cubs to know their behaviour. The study is considered a model for man-bear conflict studies for new recruits,including Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers. Soon,he was promoted to Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF). “He never complains. If there is a problem,he will adjust. Patience is important for a good forest officer,” says colleague,ACF Satish Phale. “He is a rare breed of commitment and knowledge,” says Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF) S A Thorat.

Pilari-Seth is now posted at Tansa,one of the sanctuaries in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) where encroachment by tribal people has been maximum. He recollects an incident when he was tracking a tigress that had given birth to cubs in Nagzira sanctuary.

“I was on a tree when I clicked a photo and she realised my presence. They roared and came to attack me. Suddenly,they toned down and left. That day,I saw a tinge of humanity in an animal,” he says.

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