Guwahati: Five young orangutans have been rescued from a casuarina plantation in Odisha’s Balasore district, prompting a probe into how the endangered animals, which are not native to India, reached the area.
The orangutans were found in the Udayapur section of the Jaleswar Range in the Udayapur-Talsari forest area during routine patrolling on September 8. The Odisha Forest Department subsequently shifted them to Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar for medical examination and quarantine.
Regional Chief Conservator of Forests (RCCF) Prakash Chand Gogineni said all five animals had been rescued, comprising three males and two females. They are aged between six months and one year and did not appear to have suffered injuries, he said.
The discovery has triggered an investigation by the Odisha Police Special Task Force (STF), with the Forest and Environment Department also approaching the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) for assistance in probing the suspected illegal trafficking of the animals.
Gogineni said the orangutans appeared to have been brought to the area as part of a transit operation and subsequently abandoned in the casuarina forest. The Forest Department is yet to ascertain where they were brought from and has said a case will be registered under the Wildlife Protection Act.
A separate team has been deployed in the Badapai-Ranakatha area to gather information on how the orangutans reached the location and identify those who may have been involved, Odisha Forest and Environment Minister Ganesh Ram Singhkhuntia said.
The Forest and Wildlife Department has also alerted its coastal divisions and directed them to search for any other orangutans that may have been abandoned in the area.
The STF has begun investigating the circumstances surrounding the rescue. Kanwar Vishal Singh, Deputy Inspector General of Police, STF, said a team had been sent to Balasore to initiate the probe and that investigators would examine how the animals reached the area.
The animals were found in a casuarina plantation rather than their natural habitat. Orangutans are naturally found in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia and are not found in the wild in India.
Forest officials said the animals could not have reached Odisha naturally and may have been transported by road. The location is covered mainly by casuarina trees and is close to a state highway.
The five orangutans have been quarantined at Nandankanan Zoological Park and are being monitored by veterinarians and zoo staff. They were initially fed bananas and apples, while the younger animals were given mashed potatoes and apples, according to sources at the zoo.
The animals’ arrival at Nandankanan comes after the zoo had previously housed an orangutan for nearly 16 years. Its 41-year-old female orangutan, Bini, died in 2019 from age-related and associated ailments. She had been brought from Pune Zoo on November 20, 2003.
The Forest Department said cases involving orangutan trafficking are not new to India, with orangutans having previously been rescued in Maharashtra, Assam and Mizoram after 2020.
The STF is investigating the route through which the animals may have been transported and those who may have been involved. Officials said the investigation is at an early stage and declined to speculate on the involvement of poachers.
The three known living species of orangutan — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli — are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They are protected under Indian wildlife laws, while international commercial trade in orangutans is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The discovery of five young orangutans together, without any adult animals nearby, has raised concerns about their possible trafficking. Young orangutans typically remain with their mothers for several years.
In 2022, two baby orangutans were found abandoned at a checkpoint near the Assam-Mizoram border. Officials at the time suspected that they had been brought into India through neighbouring Myanmar.