Billy Arjan Singh: Difference between revisions

{{Use Indian English|date=June 2015}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}

[[File:Arjan Singh.jpg|thumb|Billy Arjan Singh]]

[[Kunwar (title)|Kunwar]] '''"Billy" Arjan Singh''' (15 August 1917&nbsp;– 1 January 2010) was an [[India]]n hunter turned conservationist and author. He was the first who tried to reintroduce [[Bengal tiger|tigers]] and [[Indian Leopard|leopards]] from captivity into the wild.<ref name="obituary">Thapar, V. (2010) ''Obituary: Billy Arjan Singh'' HT Media Limited, 2 January 2010 [https://archive.today/20130125223320/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Obituary-Billy-Arjan-Singh/Article1-493083.aspx online]</ref>

{{Unreferenced section|date=August 2011}}

Kunwar "Billy" Arjan Singh was born in [[Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh|Gorakhpur]] on 15 August 1917 as the second son of Kunwar Jasbir Singh, [[Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]] (1887–1942), a member of the royal Ahluwalia dynasty of [[Kapurthala]]. His grandfather was Raja [[Harnam Singh]] and his uncle was [[Raja Maharaj Singh]]. [[Rajkumari Amrit Kaur]] was his aunt and his elder brother was Air Vice-Marshal Kunwar Jaswant Singh, [[PVSM]] (1915–1963). In 1940, Singh was commissioned as a [[Second Lieutenant]] in the [[British Indian Army]] and was posted to the south of Iraq. Upon his return to India he purchased a farm in the remote district of [[Lakhimpur Kheri]] and built himself a home – named in honour of his father – Jasbir Nagar. He settled down to a life of farming and hunting. Nearly ten years later, he also acquired an estate on the borders of the forestry reserve at Dudhwa. This came to be known as Tiger Haven and it is there that he lived for most of the rest of his life.

In the 1990s, some tigers were observed in the protected area, which had a [[Siberian tiger]] [[phenotype]] of a large head, pale pelage, white complexion, and wide stripes, and were therefore suspected to be Bengal-Siberian tiger [[Hybrid (biology)|hybrids]]. Billy Arjan Singh sent hair samples of tigers from the area to the [[Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology]] in [[Hyderabad, India|Hyderabad]] where the samples were analysed using [[Mitochondrial DNA|mitochondrial]] sequence analysis. Results revealed that the tigers in question had a Bengal tiger mitochondrial [[haplotype]] indicating that their mother was a Bengal tiger.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Shankaranarayanan, P. |author2=Singh, L. |year=1998 |url=http://www.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/nov10/articles18.htm |title=Mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence among big cats and their hybrids |journal= Current Science |volume=75 |issue=9 |pages= 919–923}}</ref> Skin, hair and blood samples from 71 tigers collected in various Indian zoos, in the [[Indian Museum|National Museum in Kolkata]] and including the two hair samples from Dudhwa National Park were prepared for [[Microsatellite (genetics)|microsatellite]] analysis that revealed that two tigers had [[allele]]s in two [[Locus (genetics)|loci]] that were contributed by Bengal and Siberian tiger subspecies.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Shankaranarayanan, P. |author2=Banerjee, M. |author3=Kacker, R. K. |author4=Aggarwal, R. K. |author5=Singh, L. |name-list-style=amp |year=1997 |url=http://www.freewebs.com/hmgrgcb/publication/Elec%20shankar%20et%20al%201997.pdf |title=Genetic variation in Asiatic lions and Indian tigers |journal=Electrophoresis |volume=18 |issue=9 |pages=1693–1700 |doi=10.1002/elps.1150180938 |pmid=9378147 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723034412/http://www.freewebs.com/hmgrgcb/publication/Elec%20shankar%20et%20al%201997.pdf |archivedate=23 July 2013}}</ref> However, samples of two hybrid specimens constituted a too small base to conclusively presume that ''Tara'' was the source of the Siberian tiger genes.<ref>Menon, S. (1997). [http://www.india-today.com/itoday/17111997/wild.html ''Tainted Royalty''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080630013849/http://www.india-today.com/itoday/17111997/wild.html |date=30 June 2008 }}. India Today.</ref>

For his contributions to conservation, Arjan Singh was widely honoured. In 1996, he was awarded the ''World Wildlife Gold Medal'', and obtained the [[Order of the Golden Ark]] in 1997.<ref>{{cite web |author=WWF |url=http://worldwildlife.org/stories/tiger-hero-billy-arjan-singh |title=Tiger hero: 'Billy' Arjan Singh |year=2010 |publisher=WWF, 4 January 2010}}</ref>

In 2004, Arjan Singh received the [[J. Paul Getty Trust|Getty]] Award, administered by the [[World Wildlife Fund]], for his innovative contribution to conservation and for creating public awareness. In 2006, he received the ''Yash Bharati award'' and the [[Padma Bhushan]] two months later.<ref>{{cite web|author=Atroley, A. |url=http://www.wwfindia.org/news_facts/index.cfm?uNewsID=1160 |title=Billy Arjan Singh awarded Padma Bhushan. |year=2006 |publisher=WWF India, 30 March 2006}}</ref>

He also received the ''Lifetime Award for Tiger Conservation''.{{citation needed|date=June 2013}}