Conservationist Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh, who left civil services to build forest, dies at 57

“Aditya Dicky Singh was a committed naturalist, conservationist and wildlife photographer. For many years, he made the Ranthambhore tiger reserve his home.”

Prominent wildlife conservationist and photographer Aditya 'Dicky' Singh died at his home on the outskirts of Ranthambore tiger reserve in Rajasthan Wednesday morning. He was 57.

"Aditya had a surgery after a minor heart attack a few weeks ago, after which he had come back and was recuperating well. It was a normal day yesterday, he was talking to everyone and was very jovial in his usual way. It appears that he died in his sleep early morning today," family friend Dharmendra Khandal told PTI.

A former officer in the Indian Civil Services, Singh quit his bureaucratic career and came to Ranthambore in 1998, where he leased a government property and continued to buy the adjacent farming land of nearly 40 acres to turn it into a reserve on the edge of the Ranthambore tiger reserve.

"Singh took up the rewilding project with great passion and rooting out invasive foreign plants and planting native trees, he turned it into a small forest. Through his conservation work he has motivated so many people. He developed the culture among conservationists of regularly following individual tigers," Mr. Khandal, a conservation biologist, said.

Apart from his conservation efforts that included guided safaris through the vast richness of Ranthambore National Park, Singh had also co-authored a book "Noor: Queen of Ranthambore", covering different aspects of tigress Noor's life through a collection of photographs and stories.

Mr. Singh is survived by his wife, Poonam, and 11-year-old daughter, Nyra.

Noted conservationist and a friend Valmik Thapar remembered Mr. Singh as a "great fighter" for Ranthambore who "never compromised with the truth".