Five baby orangutans abandoned in an Indian forest have exposed what experts describe as a massive illegal trade in exotic wildlife, with traffickers increasingly smuggling rare species into the country.
Wildlife experts warn that a multi-million-dollar market is driving the trafficking of endangered animals, including apes transported through conflict-hit Myanmar to meet demand among wealthy Indians seeking exotic pets and social media status symbols, reports AFP.
“There have been several instances of exotic wild animals being found or seized across the country,” said Sumanth Bindumadhav of Humane World for Animals India. “The scale is massive.”
Critically endangered orangutans are found only on Indonesia’s Sumatra island and the islands of Borneo, which is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
The discovery of five young orangutans in Balasore district of India’s eastern Odisha state has raised fresh concerns over the illegal trade. The animals, believed to be around one-and-a-half years old, are now being cared for at a zoo, while Indonesia has requested their repatriation.
A June 2026 report by Humane World for Animals India described a “rising trade in exotic wildlife”, citing a sharp increase in seizures as evidence of a surge in illegal trafficking.
The report estimated India’s exotic pet market was worth $42.6 million in 2024 and said orangutans and gibbons were increasingly being trafficked from Southeast Asia’s rainforests.
Social media fuels demand
A senior official at India’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau said thousands of social media influencers were promoting exotic animals as pets online, encouraging demand among followers.
“It is a huge market,” the official said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. “Rich people keep them in their homes.”
Government data shows that more than 40,000 people had registered exotic animals under a voluntary disclosure scheme by February 2021.
Experts, however, say the figure likely represents only a small portion of exotic animals privately kept across the country.
“This is a figure from only those who registered themselves, so the true volume of it is potentially much larger and remains unknown,” Bindumadhav said.
“The true scale of it is actually quite frightening.”
Shekhar Kumar Niraj, former India head of global wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC, said the rise in trafficking was also linked to the growing number of animals being kept by private owners.
“Private zoos have violated laws at a very alarming scale across the country,” Niraj said.
He said primates were particularly sought after because of their intelligence and ability to interact with humans.
Indian federal authorities did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
The World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) documented 56 seizures involving around 4,000 exotic animals in 2022 alone.
In October 2025, Mumbai customs officials arrested a passenger carrying two endangered gibbons hidden inside checked luggage.
Other seizures in Mumbai included lizards, tree-climbing possums and dozens of venomous vipers.
In 2024, forest officials recovered a trafficked orangutan from an apartment in Maharashtra state.
However, experts warn that such seizures represent only a fraction of the overall illegal trade.
