Rescued Mumbai Orangutan Headed Home to Indonesia After Two Years

Repatriation Scheduled

An infant orangutan rescued from a Mumbai apartment two years ago will finally return to his homeland, Indonesia, on October 19, 2026. Yogesh Nilkand Warkad, assistant management authority of CITES in Mumbai, states that procedural hurdles and the animal's poor health caused delays in this long bilateral process.

Treatment and Transfer

Authorities seized the infant from a private apartment in Dombivli, Mumbai, when he was roughly one year old. Officials then transferred him to Gorewada zoo in Maharashtra with the help of the then Chief Wildlife Warden Vivek Khandekar. A respiratory issue caused poor health when he reached one and a half years of age, prompting another transfer to Vantara zoo in Gujarat for rehabilitation.

First Success and Future Steps

This marks India's first successful repatriation of a seized CITES animal. The Sumatra Rescue Alliance in Indonesia is ready to host the juvenile. Panut Hadisiswoyo, founder of the Orangutan Information Centre, notes that international media attention regarding five abandoned baby orangutans in Odisha helped push the repatriation forward. Sinan Serhadli, a Kuala Lumpur-based conservation scientist, explains that the animal will complete a quarantine period before entering a jungle school to learn survival skills, with a possible release into the wild in about four years.

Context

Illegal wildlife trafficking frequently brings non-human primates like apes into India via air routes from Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, threatening vulnerable species populations. Specialized rehabilitation centers use forest schools to teach rescued young orangutans essential natural behaviors like climbing, nest building, and foraging that they would otherwise learn from their mothers.