Five baby orangutans found in Odisha forest prompt Indian wildlife trafficking inquiry

Discovery in Balasore

Forest officials in the eastern Indian state of Odisha recovered five baby orangutans on the morning of 8 September 2026. Local villagers first spotted the young primates sitting together on the ground and eating bananas before notifying forest staff. The animals were discovered in Ranakata, a proposed reserve forest in the Bhogarai block within the Jaleswar range of Balasore district, near the West Bengal border. The discovery site sits thousands of kilometres away from the apes' natural habitats in Southeast Asia. The terrain consists primarily of casuarina trees rather than dense canopy, lying near a state highway. Balasore District Forest Officer Pratik Prakash Indalkar stated that the animals could not have reached Odisha through natural migration and were likely transported by road.

The five animals were found in Ranakata, a proposed reserve forest in Bhogarai block, near the West Bengal border.

Trafficking inquiry

Forestry personnel believe the five young orangutans had been present in the woodland for only two or three days before their rescue. A subsequent search of the surrounding forest found no additional orangutans and provided no physical clues regarding how they were brought into the area. Images and video recordings of the young apes eating fruit on the forest floor circulated widely on social media platforms following the rescue. State authorities suspect that an organized cross-border smuggling syndicate transported the primates into India and abandoned them by the roadway. Odisha Environment Minister Ram Singh Khuntia stated that investigators are working to determine the origin and transit path of the animals.

We suspect that an international racket might be involved in this.

The Odisha state government requested a formal inquiry by India's Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, working alongside local police, forest officers, and a dedicated task force. Commercial trade in all orangutans is prohibited globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Quarantine and care

Following their extraction from the forest, the five apes received preliminary first aid before being transferred to Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha. Veterinary personnel placed the animals in a specialized quarantine enclosure to monitor their condition. Forestry authorities identified the animals as infants, while local reports described their ages as ranging between one and two years. Wildlife expert Biswajit Mohanty stated that the young age of the group is an acute concern because infant orangutans rely on maternal care for several years to acquire independent survival skills. Female orangutans reproduce at a slow pace, typically giving birth to a single infant once every eight years.

Conservation pressures

Orangutans are native only to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra across Indonesia and Malaysia, divided into three recognized species: Bornean, Sumatran, and Tapanuli. All three species face severe threats in the wild. Estimates from the World Wildlife Fund show that approximately 104,000 orangutans currently survive in Borneo and Sumatra, down from more than 230,000 animals a century ago. The Tapanuli orangutan is classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 800 individuals remaining in the wild. The entire Tapanuli population lives in the West Block of North Sumatra's Batang Toru forest, where habitat is fragmented by mining operations, palm oil plantations, and a hydroelectric dam project. In November, widespread floods and landslides across North Sumatra killed between 33 and 54 Tapanuli orangutans, eliminating 7% of the total population. Prior ecological studies cited by conservation groups show that annual population losses of just 1% are enough to push the Tapanuli species to extinction.