5 ‘lost’ baby orangutans found in Odisha forest

BHUBANESWAR: Five juvenile orangutans, native to Southeast Asia and never recorded in the wild anywhere in India, were found abandoned Tuesday morning in a casuarina forest off NH-16 in Odisha’s Balasore district.Forest officials suspect a transoceanic trafficking network smuggled the apes, all less than a year old, into India and abandoned them near Badipada, in Chandaneswar, after realising they might be caught.Villagers spotted the orangutans dangling from tree branches inside the Bhogarai forest, about 40 km from the Balasore-Kolkata stretch of NH-16, and alerted the forest department.“Our field personnel visited the site and were surprised to discover that all five were baby orangutans, two of them females. As a crowd started gathering near the forest, we decided to bring a cage and safely secure the animals without using tranquillisers,” Balasore divisional forest officer Prateek Indalkar said.“The orangutans were extremely calm. Our team picked up the animals and placed them inside the cage without any difficulty.”Indalkar said the animals might have been transported by road from Kolkata. “Since orangutans are not available in India, we suspect they came from Malaysia to Kolkata by ship.The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has the expertise to determine the exact species and identify the country from which they originated.”Chief wildlife warden Prem Kumar Jha said orangutans are easy prey for traffickers and are kept illegally as exotic pets by wealthy collectors in several countries.“Whether the animals were being taken to Kolkata for sale to affluent buyers or being moved to another destination will be established soon,” he said.A WCCB team is travelling to Balasore to investigate the animals’ origin. State forest minister Ganesh Ram Singhkhuntia said the probe would go into “how the animals landed in Balasore and from where they were brought since they are not available in India in their natural habitat”.After a medical examination, the rescued orangutans were shifted to the animal rescue centre at Bhubaneswar’s Nandankanan Zoological Park.You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Bhubaneswar | Silver Rate in Bhubaneswar | Bank Holidays in Bhubaneswar | Public Holidays in Bhubaneswar | Petrol Price in Bhubaneswar | Diesel Price in Bhubaneswar | CNG Price in Bhubaneswar | LPG Price in BhubaneswarStay updated with the latest Bhubaneswar news. Download the TOI App.