The discovery last week (Sept. 8) of five baby orangutans in a reserve forest in the Ranakantha area of Balasore district in Odisha is a clear indication that trafficking of wildlife is thriving along India’s eastern seaboard. South India has been a source as well as a destination for a lot of this traffic, with Chennai being a major transit hub. The persistence of this problem despite many publicised seizures shows that current counter-trafficking efforts need to be bolstered with better surveillance and interception technology and supported with awareness campaigns in wider society.
The abandoned babies are said to be no more than three to eight months old and must have been torn from their mothers. Orangutans are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, where they dwell in high-canopied rainforests. Had the infants not been found by local villagers, they would surely have perished. They are now being looked after in the Nandankanan zoo in Bhubaneswar while protocols are being gone through for repatriation to wherever they were captured from, possibly Indonesia.
This is not the first time that orangutans have figured on the wildlife trafficking map of India. While reptiles and rare birds form the bulk of exotic species illegally brought in, interceptions of non-native primates like orangutans, gibbons and slow lorises, all on the IUCN endangered list, have become more frequent as well. This points to a thriving illegal pet trade catering to the private menageries of wealthy people. Wildlife experts say this demand has even led to the burgeoning of private captive breeding programmes in some parts of the country.
Wildlife trafficking has become a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise in India. At least 18 Indian airports figure as transit hubs. Chennai is the most prominent among them, as per data from the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic. The Chennai International Airport tops the country with 30% of all airport wildlife seizures. It is both an exit point for native species (like star tortoises and sea cucumbers) bound for Southeast Asia, and an entry point for exotic pets such as pythons, iguanas and rare birds being brought into India from places like Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Chennai's air connectivity and proximity to sea routes make it a chosen transit corridor for illicit wildlife as well as narcotics trades.
While more stringent surveillance on the eastern border and shoreline and at airports is obviously needed, it is important to work on other fronts as well. While forest officials are empowered to inspect and intercept, their efforts need to be bolstered by making local law enforcement more informed about wildlife trafficking. For instance, in some cases where smugglers of non-native primates were stopped by the police, they got away by saying the animals were common ‘monkeys’. More often than not, local policemen do not know how to treat stressed animals or which agency to call for help.
Another part of the strategy must be to destroy the market for exotic pets. This must involve a broad campaign to rid high society of the ‘prestige’ of keeping endangered animals as pets. Unfortunately, keeping a rare animal in a sad cage does not carry enough opprobrium in India. This can only be rectified through popular campaigns to show that the tendency to pose with a gibbon from Malaysia is not cool but quite asinine.