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Join today<\/a><\/p>\n \n Already a member? The villagers who first spotted the five baby orangutans in a casuarina forest in India<\/a> in early September were puzzled by their reddish hair and unfamiliar faces.<\/p>\n The three males and two females, aged six to eight months \u2014 were left on a plantation in eastern India\u2019s Odisha, over 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) from their native rainforests in Borneo<\/a> and Sumatra, evidence of a growing illicit trade of apes being trafficked into India. <\/p>\n They’re now at an Indian zoo, where keepers reportedly have been playing classical music to soothe them. <\/p>\n Wild orangutans are native only to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, where they sustain rainforests by spreading seeds across vast areas, allowing trees to regenerate and store carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming. The species is critically endangered, threatened by severe habitat loss. There are about 119,500 orangutans left in the wild, according to conservation organization World Wildlife Fund.<\/p>\n The global illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth $34 billion annually, according to a 2026 study by National University of Singapore researchers, and India is emerging as an important market. Experts say seizures reflect a fraction of a booming trade in exotic or non-native animals sold to wealthy Indian collectors.<\/p>\n India\u2019s wildlife laws were mainly designed to protect native species such as elephants, rhinoceroses and tigers from being trafficked overseas. Gaps in controls on imported animals complicate efforts to trace the origins of exotic wildlife. <\/p>\n In 2022, two juvenile Sumatran orangutans were found in boxes at a checkpoint between the northeastern states of Assam and Mizoram. Another was rescued in Mizoram in 2023, and a young orangutan was found in an apartment near Mumbai in November 2024. At least 23 gibbons were seized at Indian airports in 2025, according to an analysis by nonprofit Wildlife Trust of India. In May 2026, Egyptian authorities seized three India-bound, sedated baby chimpanzees.<\/p>\n \u201cIndia has become the number one destination for the live trade of primates,\u201d said Sinan Serhadli, a wildlife trafficking expert at the Orangutan Information Centre in Indonesia\u2019s North Sumatra<\/a> province.<\/p>\n India\u2019s exotic wildlife trade and Southeast Asian trafficking routes <\/p>\n Wealthy collectors who prize rare animals as \u201cstatus symbols\u201d are driving the trade in trafficked animals from Southeast Asia, a regional hub for trade in species from elsewhere, said Uttara Mendiratta, a wildlife trafficking researcher in India.<\/p>\n Expanding tourism has led to more direct flights to India through cities like Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, giving traffickers routes that are faster, albeit riskier, than overland border crossings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe profit margins are so high that they can afford to lose a few (animals) and still make a profit,\u201d Mendiratta said.<\/p>\n Questions also surround legal trade. Most commercial trade in orangutans is banned, but exceptions exist for captive-bred animals. India imported 41 orangutans between 2021 and 2024, according to CITES<\/a>, the global treaty regulating trade in endangered wildlife. <\/p>\n Sinan Serhadli, a wildlife trafficking expert at Indonesia\u2019s Orangutan Information Centre, questioned whether the animals were legitimately bred in captivity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just shows the loopholes. And … corruption as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The CITES Secretariat declined to comment, saying the matter was under review<\/p>\n Loopholes in India\u2019s wildlife laws enable wildlife trafficking <\/p>\n Concerned about diseases spreading from animals to people during the COVID-19 pandemic, India allowed people to register their exotic animals in 2020 without proving their origins.<\/p>\n They can report births, deaths and breeding of non-native species through an online portal. But the government lacks enough staff and expertise to adequately inspect collections and identify global species. The system also leaves room for trafficked animals to be misrepresented as registered ones, Mendiratta said.<\/p>\n India tightened its wildlife laws in 2022, giving authorities clearer powers to seize illegally traded exotic animals and prosecute traffickers. But by then, it already had \u201copened the floodgates,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n India\u2019s exotic pet trade \u201csits at the crossroads of biodiversity loss, unbridled community demand, and organized criminal activity,\u201d said a 2026 report by Humane World for Animals India.<\/p>\n India’s forest ministry didn’t respond to AP’s request for comment.<\/p>\n
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