Exotic animal smuggling baffles activists in India
Five toddler orangutans, a species discovered solely on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and on Borneo, had been present in a forest by rangers patrolling within the Balasore district of India’s jap Odisha state final week.
Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry has requested India to ascertain the origin of the deserted orangutans, recognized for his or her shaggy purple fur, and return them if they’re discovered to have come from their typical habitat overseas.
The rescue of the uncommon apes has raised contemporary questions on how exotic animals enter India and the way the nation is used within the unlawful wildlife commerce.
How did 5 child orangutans find yourself in India?
“The discovery on the jap coast of India is a bit mind-boggling. It’s like that point a couple of years in the past when dwell kangaroos had been discovered wandering alongside the highways of West Bengal,” Kanitha Krishnasamy, Southeast Asia director at wildlife commerce monitoring community TRAFFIC, advised DW.
“What are orangutans doing in India? Were they smuggled from their native Malaysia or Indonesia or did they arrive from a facility?” she requested.
The Odisha authorities has requested the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to research how the critically endangered animals reached the state.
“These animals are usually not present in India and are principally seen within the rainforests of Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo and Sumatra in Southeast Asia,” mentioned Odisha’s Forest and Environment Minister Ganesh Ram Singh Khuntia.
“We suspect that they could have been launched within the Balasore district forest… by an global wildlife smuggling racket.”
Indian officers seize pythons, parrots, large tortoises
The orangutans are the most recent in a sequence of unique wildlife being seized in India.
In November 2024, authorities within the Indian metropolis of Bengaluru seized 40 uncommon animals arriving from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, together with Aldabra large tortoises, gibbons, American alligators and iguanas.
In June 2025, Mumbai Customs seized 284 unique animals arriving in 4 consignments from the Thai capital, Bangkok, together with snakes and tortoises.
In July 2025, customs officers within the Indian metropolis of Pune intercepted 20 unique animals from passengers arriving from Bangkok. They included 14 inexperienced tree pythons, 4 double-eyed fig parrots and two Sumatran striped rabbits.
‘Shocking’ quantity of trafficked wildlife present in India
According to figures from TRAFFIC, 7,272 particular person animals, alive and useless, had been seized from passenger baggage in smuggling attempts between Thailand and India between January 2022 and May 2025, with greater than 80% of interceptions going down in India.
The animals included reptiles, birds and mammals — many apparently destined for the unique pet commerce.
“We have discovered a whole bunch of species and 1000’s of people being trafficked into India by air and land routes. This modified drastically from round 2020,” conservation researcher and practitioner Uttara Mendiratta advised DW.
“Both the amount of this trafficking, and the variety of species concerned, lots of that are endangered, have been stunning.”
Law enforcement lagging behind smugglers
TRAFFIC says India and Malaysia had been the nations most implicated in an unlawful gibbon commerce chain recognized in 2025, with gibbons being moved from Malaysia to India.
Trishala Ashok, a conservation filmmaker and science communicator, says the dimensions of the commerce stays troublesome to ascertain.
“Our enforcement techniques have not advanced on the identical pace because the commerce,” Ashok advised DW. “We are nonetheless reacting to particular person seizures reasonably than mapping the networks, financiers, suppliers and consumers behind them.”
Tito Joseph of the Wildlife Protection Society of India says the scenario is escalating.
“Smuggling of unique species was at all times there in India,” Joseph advised DW.
At the identical time, he famous that it has elevated considerably since 2018.
He identifies routes working from Myanmar by northeast India into different elements of the nation, in addition to motion from Bangladesh into India. By air, Thailand and Malaysia are vital sources of trafficked wildlife.
The routes into India additionally prolong past airports. Exotic animals are additionally reaching India by its northeastern land borders.
“What is new is the massive quantity of incoming dwell wildlife. There are indications that among the merchants who had been concerned in smuggling dwell animals like star tortoises out are actually additionally concerned in sourcing [other] unique wildlife,” mentioned Mendiratta, the conservation researcher.
Social media followers unlawful animal commerce
Demand is being fueled by growing ownership of exotic pets and unregulated digital marketplaces, in keeping with a June 2026 analysis of India’s unique pet commerce by Humane World for Animals India, an NGO that works to sort out the basis causes of animal cruelty.
“Internationally, social media platforms have aided and abetted the expansion of unlawful commerce in wild animals by offering a platform for folks to show and boast concerning the animals they accumulate,” wildlife biologist and conservation scientist Ravi Chellam advised DW. “These platforms are additionally serving as a web-based market for the unlawful commerce to flourish.”
“The drawback is exacerbated by the mindless and obscenely large private collections of animals from across the global community by the wealthy and the well-known,” Chellam famous.
Establishing the place an animal got here from can change into notably troublesome as soon as it has crossed a number of borders.
“A seizure can’t be the top of the investigation. It ought to be the start,” mentioned Ashok, the conservation filmmaker.
“Who equipped the animals? Who organized the motion? Who paid? Who was ready for them?” she asks. “Until we begin following these hyperlinks, we are going to preserve catching consignments with out dismantling the networks behind them.”
Edited by: Keith Walker
