“Wildlife was my first love and I never lost that focus”
O
ne of the most eminent
alumni to be associated
with this institute, Dr.
Ullas Karanth’s career
stands testament to his dedication to and passion for the field of
wildlife conservation. It is important to acknowledge the influence
of such a personality on the bright
young minds which will shape the
course of this nation’s future. In
this interview, Dr. Karanth highlights the trajectory that his career
followed since he graduated from
KREC in ’71, the achievements of
wildlife conservation in India and
the roadblocks faced by pioneers in
this field.
Dr. Karanth, having obtained a
degree in engineering, what inspired
you to take up zoology? How was
the transformation from engineering
to wildlife conservation?
Although I joined Engineering in 1965 out
of a compulsion of eventually finding a
job, wildlife was my first love and I never
lost that focus. I read a lot about nature,
and visited Nagarahole, Kudremukh, Bandipur and other Western Ghat areas even
back then. However, the transformation to
being a professional wildlife biologist took
its own time. For three years, I was a process planning engineer in Bosch (1971-73);
the next two years, I worked as a sales engineer for farm equipment (1974-1976); then
I took up farming and cultivated tobacco
for eight years (1977-1985). Parallelly, I was
studying natural history and targeting being
formally trained as a wildlife biologist at
the University of Florida. Finally at the age
of 36, I made a complete career switch!
There are a lot of endangered
animals in India. What made you
specialize in tigers?
I was always fascinated by big cats. Tigers
are wide ranging predators, and when you
take steps to conserve their habitats and
recover their populations, you end up
saving all the other species that share the
same habitats, including elephants, other
predators such as dholes and leopards and
thousands of other species of plants and
animals. Tigers are therefore considered an
umbrella species that she