State authorities in Odisha have opened a trafficking inquiry after five young orangutans were discovered early on Tuesday in Ranakata, a proposed reserve forest in Bhogarai block, near the West Bengal border. The probe has redirected forest, police and special task force resources to the case and prompted a request for national agency support.
Local residents who found the animals alerted forest officials and provided first aid in the field. Balasore District Forest Officer Pratik Prakash Indalkar said investigators doubt the apes reached Odisha on their own and are examining whether they had been transported by road. "The five animals were found in Ranakata, a proposed reserve forest in Bhogarai block, near the West Bengal border," he said. "The area is covered mainly by casuarina trees and is not a dense forest. It is also close to a state highway."
The animals were moved to Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar, where they are in quarantine and under medical monitoring. Officials said they believe the orangutans had been in the area for only two or three days; a search found no other apes and turned up no clear leads on how the group arrived.
Authorities report the animals as infants, though some local accounts suggest they may be between one and two years old. Wildlife expert Biswajit Mohanty warned that the young age is a serious concern because juvenile orangutans typically remain with their mothers for several years to learn survival skills. Female orangutans also reproduce slowly, generally giving birth only once every eight years, a factor that magnifies the conservation loss if the animals were taken from the wild.
There are three living species of orangutan, Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli, all listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. International commercial trade in orangutans is prohibited under CITES, and the animals are protected under Indian wildlife laws, but the species has previously been trafficked for sale as exotic pets and to private collectors.
The incident echoes a 2022 case in which two baby orangutans were found abandoned at a checkpoint near the Assam-Mizoram border, a seizure that officials suspected involved transit through Myanmar. Investigators in Odisha say inquiries will continue while the apes remain in quarantine and agencies search for forensic or witness evidence that explains how five young orangutans came to be thousands of kilometres from their natural rainforest habitats.
