Indonesia asks India to return five infant orangutans found in an Odisha forest

Five infant orangutans found in a forest in Balasore district, Odisha, on 8 September have pulled India and Indonesia into a repatriation argument that is still at the letter-writing stage. Rangers came across the animals, estimated at one to one and a half years old, in the Bhogarai/Udaipur block of Jaleswar, near the West Bengal border. They are now in quarantine at the hand-rearing centre in Nandankanan Zoological Park outside Bhubaneswar. Odisha's principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), P.K. Jha, said they were shocked at first and are now feeding.

Orangutans do not live in the wild in India. Their range is Sumatra and Borneo. That fact alone is why the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau and Odisha Police are treating the find as trafficking, not a local curiosity. Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry says early looks at body shape point to Sumatran orangutans, Pongo abelii, a critically endangered species whose last published population estimate, from 2016, was just over 13,500. The ministry's spokesman, Ristianto Pribadi, said the identification is still preliminary and that DNA tests will settle species and origin.

Jakarta has written to India's CITES Management Authority offering to take the animals back if the genetics confirm an Indonesian source. It has also spoken to the Indian embassy in Jakarta, the Indonesian embassy in New Delhi, BRIN as scientific authority, and the agriculture ministry about health and transport papers. The Wildlife Society of Orissa's secretary, Biswajit Mohanty, sent the Union Environment Ministry a letter urging DNA work with Indonesian and Malaysian CITES desks and a fast health protocol if the infants are to fly.

Odisha has not agreed to send them anywhere yet. Senior state officials told The Indian Express that repatriation is not the present file. Survival is. Jha said a decision on return versus keeping them on display would come later. That gap between a source-country demand and a host-state focus on quarantine is common in wildlife cases and usually lasts until a central CITES desk writes a clear instruction.

Five unweaned apes in one forest patch implies a route, not a single lost pet. Infants that age do not walk from Sumatra to the Bay of Bengal. They move in crates, often through airports or ports that fail to open the box. The proximity to the West Bengal border will push investigators toward rail and road corridors as well as air cargo. No arrests have been announced.

Nandankanan can keep them alive. It cannot give them a forest of the right trees or a social group of the right species. If DNA says Sumatra, the conservation argument for flying them to an accredited Indonesian rescue centre is strong. If the tests are messy, India will be stuck with five animals that need years of specialised care and a court case about who brought them.

Sumatran orangutans lose habitat to palm and pulp concessions and to fires. A trafficking case that lands in India is a reminder that the live-animal trade still treats infants as cargo. CITES listing only works when both management authorities move paperwork at the same speed. Jakarta has moved first. New Delhi's CITES desk has not yet issued a public timetable for samples.

Until the DNA report appears, Nandankanan's quarantine rules are the whole policy. Temperature-controlled rooms, limited handling, and no public viewing are the correct first steps. Display would turn five seized infants into an exhibit before the crime file is opened. Jha's line that survival comes first is the right order. The second order, once they are stable, is a flight plan or a written reason why they will stay.

Five infants in one district also tell investigators that the drop site was chosen for cover, not for care. A forest edge near a state line is a place to abandon cargo when a handover fails.