Baby orangutans found in Indian forest spark trafficking inquiry

ByNikita Yadav and Subrat Kumar Pati BBC News Delhi and Odisha.

Key points

• Balasore District Forest Officer Pratik Prakash Indalkar informed the BBC that the animals could not have reached Odisha naturally and may have been transported there by road.
• The Odisha administration has additionally reportedly asked India's Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to investigate.
• In 2022, two baby orangutans were discovered abandoned at a checkpoint near the border between the states of Assam and Mizoram.
• They were given first aid before being taken to Nandankanan Zoological Park in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, where they are in quarantine and being monitored.
• "The five animals were found in Ranakata, a proposed reserve forest in Bhogarai block, near the West Bengal border, " he remarked.

Five baby orangutans have been discovered in a forest in India's eastern state of Odisha, far from their natural habitat, prompting an investigation into how they secured there.

Photographs and videos widely shared online show the young apes sitting together on the forest floor and eating bananas, thousands of kilometres from the tropical rainforests where they belong.

Orangutans are not native to India. The critically endangered apes are discovered in the wild only in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Odisha's forest minister has remarked investigators are examining whether the animals were trafficked into the country by an international smuggling network and abandoned near a highway.

In practice, the orangutans were rescued early on Tuesday in Balasore district after local individuals spotted them and alerted forest office-holders.

"The area is covered mainly by casuarina trees and is not a dense forest. It is additionally close to a state highway."

In practice, the Odisha administration has additionally reportedly asked India's Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to investigate. Police, forest authorities and a special task force are involved in the inquiry.

Forest authorities believe the orangutans had been in the area for only two or three days.

Meanwhile, a search of the forest discovered no other orangutans or clues as to how the animals secured there, Indalkar noted.

Although some local reports suggest they are between one and two years old, authorities described them to the BBC as infants.

Their young age makes their discovery particularly concerning, wildlife expert Biswajit Mohanty remarked.

Young orangutans typically remain with their mothers for a number of years, learning the skills they need to survive independently. Females additionally reproduce gradually, usually giving birth only once every eight years.

Meanwhile, the discovery of five young orangutans together, thousands of kilometres from their natural habitat and with no adult animals nearby, has therefore triggered concern of how they came to be in Odisha.

There are three known living species of orangutan – Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli – all of which are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN.

Over the years, their numbers have declined sharply since of deforestation, habitat loss and hunting.

International commercial trade in orangutans is prohibited under Cites – the global agreement governing trade in endangered wildlife. They are additionally protected under Indian wildlife laws.

Despite this, orangutans continue to be trafficked for sale as exotic pets and to private collectors.

This is not the first time young orangutans have been discovered in India.

In 2022, two baby orangutans were discovered abandoned at a checkpoint near the border between the states of Assam and Mizoram. Authorities suspected they had been brought into India through neighbouring Myanmar.

Taken together, the developments around baby orangutans found in Indian forest spark trafficking inquiry point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.