DP Srivastav grew up in the concrete jungle of Capital City, Delhi. A love for wildlife prompted him to pursue a Master's in Environmental Studies from the University of Delhi, where he developed an understanding as a naturalist and of human ecology. He began exploring nature’s hidden beauties—from fallen leaves to flying birds to mammal movements—and worked toward conserving these fragile elements in human-dominated landscapes.

With years of practice, he developed expertise in reading wildlife tracks and signs and monitoring wildlife in the field. He also worked as a field surveyor assessing carnivore distribution in Central India and as an educator sensitizing students from city and rural backgrounds to the importance of wildlife and the environment. He later joined the Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), University of Delhi, focusing on the ecological restoration of degraded patches into full-fledged ecosystems and monitoring wildlife. This experience enabled him to provide freelance consulting, designing assessments and conservation mitigations for developmental projects including highways, green energy, and tourism initiatives.

News articles about tiger sightings near Bhopal city in 2016-17 sparked his interest in how and why tigers were moving into urban areas. He developed this into a research and later in Urban Tigers Network (www.urbantigers.org) studying tigers in different cities of Central India.