Indian tiger conservationist, known as "Tiger Man". He died on May 31st 2025, aged 73.
Mr Thapar came from a family that was part of the Punjabi elite in New Delhi, India—intellectuals, army officers and friends of the Gandhis. He saw his first tiger at the age of ten, while riding an elephant. After his first marriage collapsed and early career attempts stalled, he went to the Ranthambore national tiger reserve in Rajasthan and was introduced to tiger-watching by Fateh Singh Rathore, the reserve's wildlife warden.
Over five decades he fought to protect India's tigers, observing and recording the activities of 125 individual animals at Ranthambore (392 square kilometres). He wrote almost 30 books and made television documentaries, the best known being "Land of the Tiger" for the BBC in 1997. He claimed to have sat on 150 government committees.
His action plan called for inviolate space for tigers far from humans, properly armed local wardens to enforce the law, and forest services run at state rather than national level. Around Ranthambore he set up a foundation to encourage conservation in 100 perimeter villages, as well as a co-operative craft society and a school of art. He later softened his stance on human exclusion, advocating properly managed tourism and collaboration between scientists, villagers and state officials.
When Mr Thapar began his work, the context was dire. In 1900 around 100,000 tigers had roamed India. By 1973, through plunder, agriculture and maharajas' shooting sprees, numbers had fallen to 1,800. That year Indira Gandhi established Project Tiger, creating nine national reserves with guards. The population stabilised, but poachers continued to raid reserves for tiger pelts, bones and body parts destined for the Chinese medicine trade.
An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.