Valmik Thapar, an anthropology graduate who became one of India’s leading wildlife conservationists, shaping government policies on tiger conservation efforts and drawing global attention to the big cats through books and films, died on Saturday. He was 73.

Thapar worked mainly with tigers in the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan where he championed community-based conservation efforts, while simultaneously advocating for stronger nationwide government initiatives to protect tigers and
their ecosystem.

Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh described Thapar as “a legendary figure” in the conservation domain. “Today’s Ranthambore, particularly, is a testimony to his deep commitment and indefatigable zeal,” Ramesh posted on X on Saturday. He was uncommonly knowledgeable on a variety of issues relating to biodiversity and not a day passed during my ministerial tenure without our talking to each other —with me almost always at the receiving end.”

Thapar was among a generation of conservationists who had the opportunity to witness the evolution of India’s Project Tiger — launched in 1972-73 — which is widely regarded as among the world’s most successful conservation programmes.

“His passion arose purely from his heart, inspired by the charisma of the big cat,” said Ullas Karanth, emeritus director of the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore, who has himself focused on tiger ecology and the fate of tiger populations since the 1970s.

Thapar was only 23 when he went to Ranthambore in 1976. Over the next four decades, he studied nearly 200 tigers, spending hours in the forests in close proximity to the animals, observing their behaviour, even naming some of them — Broken Tooth, Genghis, Laxmi, Machli, Padmini.

Thapar had played a key role in “pushing for” regulatory initiatives such as the establishment of a Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to curb poaching and amendments to wildlife regulations. “I was amazed by Valmik’s incredible drive and a shrewd understanding of how political systems worked,” Karanth said.

Ravi Chellam, a wildlife biologist and a specialist on India’s lions, said Thapar had some “very strong views on what needed to be done”, which he would not be shy of expressing.

“He was also a prolific author, lucid presenter and narrator of films and documentaries who built a global reputation as one of the foremost spokespersons for India’s wilderness,” Chellam said.

Among his earliest books was With Tigers in the Wild, published in 1983 and co-authored with Fateh Singh Rathore, a Ranthambore forest officer, and tiger conservation advocate Tejbir Singh. “This was among the first books with outstanding photographs of tigers in the wild from India,” Karanth said.

Thapar, while seeking to influence government policy through memberships in over 150 panels or task forces, also wrote or edited more than 30 books, including The Secret Life of Tigers in 2016, which documents the lives of three tigresses and their cubs from birth to adulthood. He also helped produce multiple films and documentaries on tigers.

Thapar was married to theatre artist Sanjana Kapoor, daughter of actor Shashi Kapoor, and they have a son.

Thapar, appointed a member of the country’s tiger task force in 2005, had written a dissent note, expressing concern that the task force’s report was overly optimistic about the coexistence of tigers and humans, a PTI report said on Saturday. Thapar argued that for tigers to survive in the long run, certain areas needed to
be kept entirely free from human interference.