Images of five tiny, reddish-haired orangutans moving through a forest in Odisha quickly spread online, leaving people stunned. After all, these young apes were thousands of kilometres from their natural home.
But what were five baby orangutans doing in an Odisha forest in the first place?
Orangutans are found naturally only in Southeast Asia, primarily on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. India has no wild orangutan population.
Yet on the morning of 8 September 2026, five young orangutans were found in the Bichitrapur/Ranakotha forest area near Badapai village in Bhograi block of Balasore district, Odisha, around 40 km from the Balasore-Kolkata stretch of NH-16.
Locals were the first to spot them. The animals were seen moving through the casuarina forest at around 6 am. As word spread and a crowd began gathering, Forest Department personnel stepped in to secure them.
#Bhubaneswar: Five orangutans found during routine patrolling inside Ranakatha Protected Reserved Forest near Badapai village in Baleshwar district.
Forest staff shifted the animals to Udaypur Section Office for their safety, where they are under observation and receiving… pic.twitter.com/8qazZUgtfX
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) September 9, 2026
For the officials who reached the site, this was no ordinary wildlife rescue.
The five orangutans were estimated to be around one to two years old. Odisha’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Prem Kumar Jha, gave this assessment, according to media reports.
Their presence in the forest also raised a more troubling question: how did they get there?
A rescue triggered by an extraordinary sighting
Forest personnel from the Udaipur forest section reached the site after villagers alerted them. The five animals were rescued and taken to the forest office, where they were kept under observation and examined by veterinary personnel.
According to Balasore DFO Pratik Prakash Indalkar, the animals were small and relatively inactive but alert when officials found them. They were given food before being secured.
The immediate priority was to move the young animals away from the growing crowd and into professional care.
By 9 September, all five had been shifted to Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar. They are being kept in quarantine and remain under veterinary observation and medical care.
But how did they get there?
The orangutans could not have naturally travelled to coastal Odisha from their native range in Southeast Asia.
Balasore DFO Indalkar told The Indian Express that natural migration was extremely unlikely because there is no corridor linking Odisha to the species’ natural range. Their presence, he said, appeared to be the result of human intervention.
That, however, does not by itself prove that the animals were trafficked.
Indalkar has reportedly said that smuggling remains one possibility, but there is currently no conclusive evidence establishing that the five orangutans were illegally trafficked. An Odisha forest official told ANI that investigators were trying to establish where the animals came from and how they reached the forest.
The five orangutans were estimated to be around one to two years old. Photograph: (Parveen Kaswan, IFS)
Another possibility being examined is that they escaped from, or were abandoned by, someone who had been keeping them illegally or privately.
The state government has also urged the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) to investigate how the critically endangered great apes reached the Bichitrapur forest area.
If the animals had been legally imported into India, there should be documentation to establish that.
Five young orangutans — and a paper trail that could hold the answers
All three recognised orangutan species — the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) — are listed in CITES Appendix I.
CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, places its highest level of protection on species listed in Appendix I. International commercial trade in these animals is generally prohibited, while permitted international movements are subject to strict controls and documentation.
That makes one question particularly important for investigators: do these five orangutans have a legal paper trail?
Authorities would need to establish their species and origin and then examine relevant CITES permits, Indian import records, customs documentation and records from any zoo, rescue centre or other facility that may have legally received them.
A CITES Secretariat document records orangutan transfers involving India, including a Tapanuli orangutan transferred from the UAE to India in 2024, with Indonesia listed as its country of origin.
However, there is currently no public evidence establishing that the five orangutans found in Balasore came through a similar documented route.
Why their age matters
The fact that all five animals are so young makes the discovery particularly concerning.
Infant and juvenile orangutans are vulnerable to the illegal wildlife trade. Research into online wildlife markets has documented young orangutans being offered for sale, particularly in Southeast Asia.
For the animals themselves, being separated from their mothers can have serious consequences. Orangutan young remain dependent on their mothers for years, making the mother-infant bond particularly important for their survival and development.
VIDEO | Bhubaneswar, Odisha: Five baby orangutans rescued from the Balasore forest have been brought to the Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar. The young primates arrived at the zoo earlier today and were immediately taken in by wildlife officials. Given their tender age,… pic.twitter.com/e5VtRRaBiS
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 9, 2026
Authorities in Southeast Asia have previously rescued baby orangutans from the illegal pet trade and repatriated them to Indonesia for rehabilitation.
These cases do not establish what happened to the five animals found in Odisha. But they show why investigators are likely to examine their origin and circumstances closely.
What happens to the five now?
For now, the five young orangutans are safe and under official care at Nandankanan Zoological Park.
They have been medically examined and placed in quarantine while authorities work to understand where they came from and what should happen to them next.
The images that first drew people online showed the softer side of the rescue — one tiny orangutan being fed with a spoon, with a basket of bananas and apples nearby.
But behind those viral images is a much bigger conservation question.
Five young orangutans have somehow ended up in a forest thousands of kilometres from their natural home. Until authorities establish how they got there, where they came from and whether they were legally moved into India, their story remains unfinished.
For now, the most important thing is that they are receiving care — while investigators work to uncover the journey that brought them to Odisha.
