Five baby orangutans, each only about a year old, were found far from home this month — deep in a forest in Odisha, India, thousands of miles from the rainforests of Indonesia where their species actually lives. They should be with their mothers in the wild. Instead, wildlife officials believe they were victims of illegal trafficking, smuggled across borders and abandoned in Balasore district before local residents spotted them and alerted forest officers.

All three orangutan species are Critically Endangered, and these five are now being cared for at Nandankanan Zoological Park in India while Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry works with India's CITES authorities and both countries' embassies to bring them home. Early signs point to Sumatran origin, though DNA testing is still needed to confirm exactly where they came from. That process — verifying their origin, coordinating with international wildlife law, and arranging safe transport — takes time these young animals may not have.

Once repatriated, these orangutans would need health exams, quarantine, genetic testing, and specialized rehabilitation before any of them could even be considered for eventual release back into the wild. Every day of delay is a day longer they spend without the specialized care built for their species, and a day longer the trafficking network responsible for tearing them from their habitat goes unpunished.

Indonesia and India have the frameworks and the partnership in place to act quickly. What's needed now is urgency and full follow-through — from verification, to transport, to rehabilitation. Sign the petition to demand a fast, fully coordinated return of these five orangutans to Indonesia — before more time is lost.