Baby orangutans found in Indian forest spark trafficking inquiry

Image source, Nandankanan, BhubaneswarImage caption, Orangutans are critically endangered species and not native to IndiaByNikita Yadav, BBC News, Delhi and Subrat Kumar Pati, OdishaFive baby orangutans have been found in a forest in India's eastern state of Odisha, far from their natural habitat, prompting an investigation into how they got there.Photographs and videos widely shared online show the young apes sitting together on the forest floor and eating bananas, thousands of kilometres from the tropical rainforests where they belong.Orangutans are not native to India. The critically endangered apes are found in the wild only in Indonesia and Malaysia.Odisha's forest minister has said investigators are examining whether the animals were trafficked into the country by an international smuggling network and abandoned near a highway.The orangutans were rescued early on Tuesday in Balasore district after local people spotted them and alerted forest officials.They were given first aid before being taken to Nandankanan Zoological Park in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, where they are in quarantine and being monitored.Balasore District Forest Officer Pratik Prakash Indalkar told the BB...