One orangutan goes home. Will the five babies follow?

Two years since an infant orangutan was seized from a Mumbai apartment, the procedures are finally complete to repatriate him to his homeland, Indonesia. The animal will fly out of India on October 19, 2026, after a long bilateral process, delayed by procedural hurdles and poor health condition of the animal, according to Yogesh Nilkand Warkad, the assistant management authority of CITES, Mumbai, who is overseeing the operation in India. In the meantime, the infant orangutan, who was estimated to be around one year at the time of seizure from a private apartment in Dombivli, Mumbai, was transferred to Gorewada zoo in Maharashtra in consultation with the then Chief Wildlife Warden Vivek Khandekar, Warkad informs. Then, due to poor health from a respiratory issue when he was just one and a half years of age, he was transferred to Vantara zoo in Gujarat, for subsequent rehabilitation. He was recuperating there, as per the authorities. “This is the first successful repatriation of a seized CITES animal from India and my office (Asst. Management Authority CITES) did everything in our capacity to make it happen,” Warkad informs Mongabay-India over the phone. Mongabay-India has previously reported on the increasing smuggling of non-human primates, particularly apes, into India, primarily by air from Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia. Beyond violating CITES regulations, the trade threatens already critically endangered species such as orangutans with further population declines in their native habitats. It also raises serious ethical concerns, given the complex social bonds of these animals…This article was originally published on Mongabay