In Fond Memory of Dr. Ajith Kumar (1952-2025)
WWF-India mourns the death of Dr. Ajith Kumar, stellar scientist, exceptional mentor and member of the WWF-India Research Advisory Committee (RAC).
Dr. Ajith Kumar helped shape the Wildlife Biology and Conservation Program at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, and headed it from the time it started to 2020. He passed away while on a field trip in Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh on 1 March 2025. That morning, his friend and colleague Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy recounts that Ajith looked at measurements of rodents in sherman traps and then went climbing with his students to Jatashankar to look for vultures.
Dr. Ajith Kumar had served as faculty at both Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun and Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History in Coimbatore. His PhD was on Lion-tailed macaques, and he held a life-long interest in primates.
Amongst his many achievements was envisioning and organizing the successful Indian Wildlife Ecology Conference (IWEC) in 2024. This was India’s first conference focusing on wildlife ecology and participants were unanimous that it should be continued. “Fittingly, so many of those at the IWEC conference -- who have now gone on to establish successful careers in academia and conservation organizations -- have been mentored by Ajith or have come through the programs that he painstaking nurtured over several decades. Ajith's outsized contributions to education and training in ecology in India will be reflected in the work that this group of committed scientists contribute to, building an understanding of India's wildlife and natural ecosystems, and securing a future for wild species and spaces,” says WWF India’s species conservation lead, Dr Pranav Chanchani.
Dr. Sejal Worah, who knew Ajith since his WII days back in the late 1980s and early 90s, feels that he was one of those rare people who was universally liked and respected and who could bring conservationists of all hues together around a common purpose. She says: “I was so glad to have reconnected with Ajith recently and worked with him on our RAC and around IWEC. It reinforced what an exceptional scientist and human being he was and I was so looking forward to our continued association. Unfortunately, it was not to be and we have lost a leading light of the conservation community in India.”
But perhaps Dr. Ajith’s greatest quality was his ability to mentor students and provide generous and non-hierarchical guidance. His students remember him as knowledgeable, jocular and approachable – a rare combination.
“Like generations of scientists and conservation ecologists he has mentored and loved, I feel fortunate to have known you and I will miss you deeply. Your jokes will continue to light up our lives, and we will continue to raise a toast to your cherished memories, Ajith Sir. It is with a very heavy heart that we bid you goodbye. May you join the LTM troops you loved so much and continue to guide us from wherever you are,” says Dr Aritra Kshettry from WWF-India who was taught and mentored by Ajith.
