Source: Indian Express
Context
Five juvenile orangutans were rescued from a forest in Odisha’s Balasore district, raising suspicion of international wildlife smuggling — the species is not native to India.
The Rescue
- Location: Ranakatha Protected Reserve Forest, Bhograi block, Balasore district, Odisha
- Five juveniles — two females, three males, aged about one to two years
- To be shifted to Nandankanan Zoological Park, Bhubaneswar, for quarantine
- Investigation handed to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB)
- Odisha Forest and Environment Minister: Ganesh Ram Singh Khuntia
Important Facts for Exams
- Orangutans are Asia’s only great apes
- Native only to Borneo and Sumatra
- Three species — Bornean, Sumatran, Tapanuli — all Critically Endangered (IUCN)
- Tapanuli orangutan, described 2017, is the world’s rarest great ape
- Great apes: orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo, human
- India’s only ape: the Hoolock gibbon (Northeast) — a lesser ape
- WCCB — statutory body under MoEFCC, established 2007 under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
- Exotic species come under Schedule IV, Wildlife (Protection) Act, after the 2022 amendment giving effect to CITES
- Orangutans are in CITES Appendix I — commercial international trade barred
- Nandankanan Zoological Park, Bhubaneswar — known for white tigers
