Indonesia sends experts to verify five Odisha orangutans’ origins and health
The three males and two females, aged six to eight months, were first spotted by villagers in a casuarina forest in eastern Odisha in early September. The villagers were unfamiliar with the animals’ reddish hair and faces. The Associated Press reported that the orangutans had been left on a plantation more than 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) from the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra and described their arrival as evidence of a growing illicit ape trade. The animals are now at an Indian zoo, where keepers reportedly have been playing classical music to soothe them.
Wild orangutans are native only to Borneo and Sumatra, where they spread seeds across vast areas, allowing trees to regenerate and store carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming. The species is critically endangered and threatened by severe habitat loss, according to the report. World Wildlife Fund said about 119,500 orangutans remain in the wild.
A 2026 study by researchers at the National University of Singapore estimated the global illegal wildlife trade at $34 billion annually. The report said India is emerging as an important market. According to experts cited in the report, seizures reflect only a fraction of a booming trade in exotic or non-native animals sold to wealthy Indian collectors.
India’s wildlife laws were mainly designed to protect native species such as elephants, rhinoceroses and tigers from trafficking overseas. Gaps in controls on imported animals complicate efforts to trace where exotic wildlife originated, the report said.
Earlier cases have involved orangutans and other primates in India. In 2022, authorities found two juvenile Sumatran orangutans in boxes at a checkpoint between the northeastern states of Assam and Mizoram. Another orangutan was rescued in Mizoram in 2023, and a young orangutan was found in an apartment near Mumbai in November 2024. At least 23 gibbons were seized at Indian airports in 2025, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Wildlife Trust of India. In May 2026, Egyptian authorities seized three India-bound, sedated baby chimpanzees.
Sinan Serhadli, a wildlife-trafficking expert at the Orangutan Information Centre in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, said, “India has become the number one destination for the live trade of primates.” Uttara Mendiratta, a wildlife-trafficking researcher in India, said wealthy collectors who prize rare animals as “status symbols” are driving trade in trafficked animals from Southeast Asia, a regional hub for species from elsewhere.
Expanding tourism has led to more direct flights to India through cities such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, giving traffickers routes that are faster, though riskier, than overland border crossings. “The profit margins are so high that they can afford to lose a few (animals) and still make a profit,” Mendiratta said.
Most commercial trade in orangutans is banned, but exceptions exist for captive-bred animals. Data from CITES, the global treaty regulating trade in endangered wildlife, showed that India imported 41 orangutans between 2021 and 2024. Serhadli questioned whether the imported animals were legitimately bred in captivity. “It just shows the loopholes. And … corruption as well,” he said. The CITES Secretariat declined to comment and said the matter was under review.
India allowed people to register exotic animals in 2020 without proving their origins amid concern about diseases spreading from animals to people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Owners can report births, deaths and breeding of non-native species through an online portal. The government lacks enough staff and expertise to inspect collections adequately and identify global species, the report said.
Mendiratta said the registration system leaves room for trafficked animals to be misrepresented as registered animals. India tightened its wildlife laws in 2022, giving authorities clearer powers to seize illegally traded exotic animals and prosecute traffickers. By then, it had already “opened the floodgates,” Mendiratta said. A 2026 report by Humane World for Animals India said India’s exotic pet trade “sits at the crossroads of biodiversity loss, unbridled community demand, and organized criminal activity.”
Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry said it was taking “active steps” to bring home the five baby orangutans found in Odisha and sent experts to verify their origins and assess their health. The animals’ mothers were likely killed, traumatizing infants that normally would depend on them for up to nine years. Conservationists have successfully returned orangutans to Indonesia from Thailand, but only one has been repatriated from India.
That earlier orangutan was transferred last year to Vantara, a private wildlife facility run by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s family. India’s federal wildlife officials and the country’s CITES authority were not informed, according to a federal wildlife official’s report to New Delhi. Officials concerned about the orangutan’s care at a local public zoo ordered it transferred to Vantara, which describes itself as a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center. The orangutan was treated for a respiratory infection and pneumonia before it was returned to Indonesia on Oct. 19 after 19 months at the private facility.
Vantara, a 3,500-acre wildlife facility in western India, has more than 150,000 animals and more than 2,000 different species. The facility has faced international scrutiny over its animal acquisitions. In November 2025, CITES questioned shipments to Vantara that included snow leopards from Germany, a bonobo said to have been bred in Iraq and a gorilla reportedly from Haiti. The primates are not native to those countries.
India’s Supreme Court cleared Vantara of wildlife trafficking and animal mistreatment allegations in 2025. In September, 27 wildlife conservation and animal welfare organizations issued a letter urging the facility to end imports of wild animals and raising concerns about endangered species and animal welfare. The groups said they had “never encountered anything comparable to the scale and diversity” of Vantara’s imports, citing more than 60,000 animals acquired in a short period.
One controversial acquisition in Vantara’s 2024-25 inventory is an animal identified as a Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s rarest great ape. Recognized as a distinct species only in 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan is found only in a small area of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, where 716 remain in the wild. Serhadli, whose organization is one of the few that works with the species, said, “The Tapanuli orangutan is hovering just above extinction.” The animal at Vantara would be the only Tapanuli orangutan in captivity.
According to CITES trade data, the animal left Indonesia in 2024 and arrived in India through the United Arab Emirates. “That can’t happen legally,” Serhadli said. Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry said it was taking “seriously” reports that a Tapanuli orangutan might be outside the country. The ministry said it could not confirm the animal’s species, origins or route to India and that an investigation would require checking permits and transfer records and conducting scientific testing.
India’s forest ministry and its CITES authority did not respond to AP requests for comment. Vantara and Indonesia’s CITES authority also did not respond. The unresolved questions cover the five Odisha animals’ origins, the legal basis for imports of captive-bred animals, and the provenance and permitted route of the animal reported at Vantara to be a Tapanuli orangutan.