Five baby orangutans dumped in Odisha forest lay bare India’s booming exotic pet obsession

Five baby orangutans were discovered abandoned in an Indian forest, highlighting a significant exotic wildlife trade, according to experts. Traffickers are smuggling increasingly rare species, including apes, into the country, with a multi-million-dollar trade in endangered animals, including orangutans, fueling demand among wealthy Indians seeking exotic status symbols to showcase on social media.

The critically endangered orangutans, native to Sumatra and Borneo, were found by rangers in Odisha's Balasore state. Indonesia has requested their return. A June 2026 report by Humane World for Animals India detailed a "rising trade in exotic wildlife," estimating India's exotic-pet market at US$42.6 million in 2024. Orangutans and gibbons were among the species being trafficked from Southeast Asia's rainforests.

A senior official at India's Wildlife Crime Control Bureau stated that "thousands of social media influencers" were promoting exotic species as pets online, leading to a "huge market" for wealthy individuals to keep them as pets. Analysts suggest that the true scale of the trade is likely much larger than the registered 40,000 exotic animals disclosed in 2021.

Former head of global anti-wildlife-trade group TRAFFIC, Shekhar Kumar Niraj, noted the surge in trafficking is linked to a rising number of animals held in private hands, with private zoos violating laws at an alarming scale. Indian federal authorities have not responded to requests for comment. The World Wide Fund for Nature-India documented 56 seizures involving about 4,000 exotic animals in 2022 alone.