Harsha Jayaramaiah

Growing up in Bangalore, Harsha was fascinated by wildlife from a young age. He realized main stream education was not for him. He missed classes at college for his work with rescue and rehabilitation of urban wildlife with PFA (People for Animals). He later worked for Sanctuary Asia’s ‘Kids for Tigers’ project till he got recognized and picked for a role of a naturalist at a wildlife lodge South India in 2004.

A few years later, he moved to Central India to become Head Naturalist with the Taj Safaris-&Beyond group in many of their lodges around the tiger reserve forests.
He left in 2010 to freelance as a Tour Leader. He has since been leading wildlife trips in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Borneo, Brazil and Tanzania. He has led varied interest groups like those focused on big cats, primates, birds, photography and so on.

Besides guiding, he along with his wife, Payal, is also involved in Nature Guide Training Programs across many landscapes of India. Through the COVID lockdown (2020-2021), they curated and created content to run India’s first Online Nature Guide Programs in collaboration with Nature Conservation Foundation- one of India’s leading research and conservation organization. These courses are offered free of cost to members of the local communities who are interested in starting or enhancing their career as a nature guide.

Harsha has enjoyed assisting as well as doing camera work on wildlife films across many parts of India. He feels spending long hours behind a filming camera in the wilderness has greatly contributed to his experience as a naturalist.