A forest officer who is both Spiderman and the Lizard

Sunil Limaye is the only forest officer with two creatures named after him, thanks to his initiatives that have impressed research fellows

For someone who has worked closely with Sunil Limaye, the striking similarities between the senior IFS officer and the Animal Man of the DC Universe are astonishing. Limaye may not be a costumed superhero, but he surely has the abilities to whisper to animals, enter their minds and mitigate their conflicts with man: all of this without donning a cape.

The 57-year-old additional principal chief conservator of forests (Wildlife East) Nagpur hails from Kolhapur. He grew up hiking and trekking, traversing through fringe forests between Mahabaleshwar in Satara and his hometown. As his love for nature grew, it wasn't a surprise he would become a forest officer one day. "After graduating, I started pursuing my MSc. Around this time, my first choice was to join the army. But, when that did not happen, I opted to give my forest entrance exams. It isn't like I settled for this profession. The forest was always my pet subject," says Limaye.

The 1988 batch IFS officer is known for initiating multiple projects to protect wildlife and forests during his tenure at SGNP. "As the chief conservator of the forest of SGNP, between May 2011 and October 2013, I invited volunteers to conserve the area. When I took charge, there were a lot of encroachments in SGNP. My priority was to remove them and then mitigate man-animal conflict. For this, we initiated multiple projects, Mumbaikars For SGNP being one." But, he realised that such initiatives needed stakeholders.

"So, I started inviting citizens, research fellows, cops, revenue department officers and the media to volunteer. The aim was to assess and assist leopard conservation. We also started foot patrolling, wherein nature enthusiasts would accompany me into the forests to understand the area better. People think our jobs are easy, but they are wrong. It is important to know the kind of work we do on the field before blaming forest officers for fires and animal fatalities."

Amid these projects, Limaye first met arachnologist Rajesh Sanap in Borivli in 2011. Sanap says, "The first time I met him, he invited us to see a trapdoor spider. Frankly, I thought he's a dangerous officer. I had never seen someone like him before. But, after three years of working with him, I realised he is the best the forest department has. Now if you go to SGNP, one can see how differently man-animals conflicts are handled by the new officers. There has been a drastic change since his transfer."

Sanap, 31, whose findings were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, Arthropoda Selecta, has named a jumping spider after Limaye. "I have been working in Aarey Milk Colony for over 14 years. A lot of people are inclined towards conservation there, but nobody is as good as Limaye. The spider, Jerzego sunillimaye, which is only the second species under the genus Jerzego from India, is named after Limaye to honour him and his work."

Limaye also has a lizard named after him, making him no less a celebrity than the 44th US president Barack Obama, who shares his name with nine different creatures. In 2018, a researcher named a nocturnal lizard, Limaye's Day Gecko. When asked what he thinks of this recognition, Limaye says, "I am touched. This is just a way of remembering me."

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