After working as a store clerk and selling coal, Rathore was offered a job as a park ranger by an uncle who had become deputy minister of forests in Rajasthan.

One of his first jobs was organising tiger hunts in the area which later became Ranthambhore National Park (RNP) during a visit by the Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in January 1961.

[3] The area of RNP, though degraded, still existed as a forest because it was the game reserve of the royal family of Jaipur.

Rathore went about carving roads through the area, patrolling it regularly, and realized that the villages needed to be moved out if the tigers were to have any chance of flourishing.

It required a huge amount of tact and patience to convince people to leave their homes, and Rathore frequently found himself crying along with the villagers.

He managed to convince a young schoolteacher about the benefits of moving to another location, making him his wife's rakhi brother.

A lame buffalo had been left behind by the villagers, and when he saw the pugmarks of a tigress and cubs in that area, he knew that she would kill the animal sooner or later.

In August 1981 Rathore was nearly killed by a group of villagers who resented being sent away from the park area because they used to collect fees from others for allowing their cattle to graze there.

In the 1990s a group of friends got together to form an NGO called Tiger Watch (TW), of which Rathore was made the Vice-Chairman.

In 2003 a young wildlife biologist called Dharmendra Khandal (DK) was selected by TW to carry out research.

In 2004 DK produced a report which contradicted the Forest Department's claim that the census showed 45 tigers in the park.

TW set up an anti-poaching project, and with the help of the police, succeeded in arresting several poachers and confiscating their weapons, sometimes pre-empting their raids.

Realising that the poachers are mainly from the Mogya tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers with no other means of livelihood, TW has started a rehabilitation programme for them, involving the women in handicraft production, and setting up a hostel where their children can be clothed, fed and educated, to give them some dignity and better prospects in future.

TW has a sister organisation called the Prakrtik Society, set up by Rathore's son Goverdhan.

[2] Rathore is survived by his wife, Khen; his son, Goverdhan; two daughters, Padmini and Jaya; four brothers; four sisters; and four grandchildren.

Picture and articles by FSR about wild tigers in Ranthambhore have been published in several books and periodicals including: