Indian wildlife officials are investigating how five baby orangutans ended up abandoned in a forest in Odisha, a state on India’s eastern coast, thousands of miles from the tropical rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia where the critically endangered apes naturally live.
Villagers spotted the young animals sitting together and eating bananas near a state highway in Balasore district on Tuesday and alerted forest officials, who gave them first aid before transferring them to a zoo in Bhubaneswar, the state capital, where they remain in quarantine under observation.
Forest officer Pratik Prakash Indalkar said the orangutans, believed to be infants only one or two years old, could not have reached the area naturally and were likely transported by road. He estimated they had been in the forest for just two or three days, with no adult apes or other clues found nearby.
Experts say the case is especially troubling because young orangutans normally stay with their mothers for years, and females give birth only about once every eight years—making the sudden appearance of five unaccompanied infants highly suspicious. Officials suspect an international smuggling ring may be involved, and India’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, along with police and a special task force, has been asked to investigate.
Orangutans are protected under international and Indian law, yet illegal trade for the exotic pet market persists. A similar case occurred in 2022 near India’s border with Myanmar.
You can read the full BBC report at the source link.
Source: Baby orangutans found in Indian forest spark trafficking inquiry (feeds.bbci.co.uk). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: trishhartmann, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).