For Valmik Thapar, the tiger was never just a symbol of wild India. It was a living, breathing force—majestic, imperiled, and, to him, essential. His death on May 31, 2025 in New Delhi, from cancer, marks the end of a five-decade crusade to ensure that the world’s largest cat did not vanish from the subcontinent it had long ruled. Born in 1952 into a politically connected family in Delhi, Thapar’s early years offered him proximity to power, but it was a chance encounter with a tiger in the wilds of Ranthambhore in the 1970s that changed his life. Under the mentorship of Fateh Singh Rathore, the architect of India’s Project Tiger, Thapar became an unlikely but relentless advocate for the species. He was not a trained biologist, but he brought to the cause a potent mix of storytelling, conviction, and unyielding moral clarity. Over the years, he authored more than 30 books and presented acclaimed wildlife documentaries, including Land of the Tiger for the BBC. Yet it was not the cameras or accolades that defined him—it was his relationship with the cats themselves. He named them, tracked them, mourned them. His detailed chronicles of Ranthambhore’s tigers, particularly tigresses like Padmini, Machli, and Krishna, read less like field notes and more like family histories. In these accounts, he observed behaviors that helped rewrite scientific understanding of tigers: Males caring for cubs, hunting in water, and even complex territorial dynamics. Tiger in Ranthambore, India. Photo credit: Rhett Ayers Butler. His most constant…This article was originally published on Mongabay