Developed and edited by Valmik Thapar, one of our foremost wildlife experts, the book is divided into three sections. The first section, ‘Thoughts from Elsewhere’, written by Thapar, takes the reader on a quick tour of the country’s natural heritage in the twenty-first century. It provides an overview of mammalian distribution, the characteristics of individual species, the evolution of the country’s wildlife habitats, threats to the environment and much else besides. The second section, ‘The Wildlife Chronicles’collects the finest accounts of India’s animals from the first century onwards. It has stories about the great predators—tigers, leopards, snow leopards, lions, golden cats and others; magnificent herbivores like the elephant, rhino, wild ox and the various species of deer and antelope; evocative accounts of some of the most striking animals in the country including monkeys, squirrels and other arboreal creatures; as well as reports of rare sightings of river dolphins, bats, shrews and other lesser-known members of the animal kingdom. Contributors to this section include travellers, hunters, writers, photographers and naturalists such as Pliny the Elder, Ibn Battuta, Babur, Akbar, François Bernier, Isabel Savory, Jim Corbett, George Schaller, Kenneth Anderson, M. Krishnan, E.R.C. Davidar, Peter Jackson and Ruskin Bond. The third section, ‘Wild Fire’, contains a selection of some of the finest photographs ever taken of India’s mammals.
About the Author
Valmik Thapar has spent several decades serving the cause of India’s flora and fauna. During this time, he has authored, co-authored and edited more than twenty-five books and made or presented nearly a dozen films for the BBC and several other television networks on the tiger and Indian flora and fauna. Wild Fire is the second book in a trilogy that began with the acclaimed Tiger Fire, which was published in 2013; Thapar is currently working on Winged Fire, a book on Indian birds, which will be published in 2015. He has also created a major non-governmental organization dedicated to conserving wildlife, the Ranthambhore Foundation. Although he has served on hundreds of government panels and committees relating to nature conservation, he is today a fierce critic of government policy and continues to campaign for new ways to save nature in India. He is presently working to set up a think tank, both online and offline, to find solutions to preserve our natural habitats.
