Five baby orangutans found in India forest spark trafficking investigation
Five baby orangutans were discovered in an Indian forest, far from their native habitats in Indonesia and Malaysia, sparking a wildlife trafficking investigation. Authorities are working to determine how the animals were smuggled into the country and abandoned.
Why it matters
The incident highlights the critical issue of international wildlife trafficking and the threats posed to endangered species.
Share Save Add as preferred on Google Nikita Yadav , BBC News, Delhi and Subrat Kumar Pati , Odisha Nandankanan, Bhubaneswar Orangutans are critically endangered species and not native to India Five baby orangutans have been found in a forest in India's eastern state of Odisha, far from their natural habitat, prompting an investigation into how they got 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 found in the wild only in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Odisha's forest minister has said investigators are examining whether the animals were trafficked into the country by an international smuggling network and abandoned near a highway.
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