IWN Daily Digest — Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Forest patrol teams in Odisha‘s Balasore district found five orangutan babies in the Bichitrapur forest area, under Bhograi block, on 8 September. Orangutans exist in the wild only in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia — nowhere near eastern India.

As reported by The Wire:

“At least five orangutan babies, which are not indigenous to India and are critically endangered, were rescued in a forest in Odisha’s Balasore district. The state government has urged the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) to look into how the animals could have landed at the Bichitrapur forest area under Bhograi block.”

Odisha’s Forest and Environment Minister Ganesh Ram Singhkhuntia told PTI that the five animals were rescued by a forest patrolling team. “We suspect that they might have been released in the Balasore district forest which borders West Bengal by an international wildlife smuggling racket,” he said.

Wild orangutan infants normally stay with their mothers for seven to nine years. Finding five without any adults nearby suggests they were taken from the wild and separated from their mothers. Singhkhuntia put the black-market price of each animal at Rs 20–25 lakh.

What happens next

A veterinary team from Similipal Tiger Reserve is keeping watch over the five orangutans, who will eventually be moved to Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar. Prem Kumar Jha, the state’s Principal Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden, told PTI that the Forest Department will run a full investigation into how the animals ended up in Balasore.

Sources: The Wire

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