Indonesia asks India to hand over five rescued orangutans
Indonesian authorities are working to secure the return of five orangutan infants that rangers found without their mothers in a forest in Balasore district in the Indian state of Odisha. Authorities suspect the animals were illegally transported to India; a criminal investigation has been launched in connection with this.
The infants were found during a patrol
The orangutans were discovered on Tuesday during a patrol in Balasore district. According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, each of them is about one and a half years old. After being rescued, the animals were taken to a zoo, where they are being cared for; they appear healthy externally.
As Asharq Al-Awsat reports, citing AFP, preliminary physical observations suggest that the infants likely originate from Sumatra. DNA tests are to confirm their origin.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Indonesia’s request to India to hand over the animals
Indonesian Ministry of Forestry spokesperson Ristianto Pribadi said that the country’s government had asked India to hand over the orangutans. The ministry has already begun communicating with the Indian government through the Indian Embassy in Jakarta.
Indonesia is also in contact with non-governmental conservation organizations to involve them in the rehabilitation of the rescued animals. In the wild, orangutans live only on Indonesia’s Sumatra and the island of Borneo, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei.
Status of the Sumatran orangutan
The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the Sumatran orangutan as a critically endangered species. Infants of this species are weaned from their mother’s milk only at around seven years of age. The latest cited estimate of the population, from 2016, was just over 13,500 individuals. Its decline is linked to habitat loss and fragmentation caused by human activity, as well as illegal hunting.
