New Delhi: Over a week after five baby orangutans were found in Odisha, the authorities are yet to determine where they came from. The DNA tests required to do so have been delayed, first because the babies were anxious, and now again because they are anaemic and doctors can only withdraw small amounts of blood in one go.
From the day they were found, the lives of these baby orangutans have been anything but normal. On Wednesday, a special veterinary team — including doctors from the Mysore Zoo, scientists from the Odisha University of Agriculture Technology (OUAT), and experts from the Wildlife Institute of India — examined them.
Blood tests revealed that one of them is severely anaemic and two are moderately anaemic. Since one of them had developed a fever in the past week, the doctors also conducted chest x-rays to see if there was a deeper problem behind the orangutan’s sneezes and coughs.
While the baby orangutans are being kept in a temperature-controlled quarantine room, their treatments so far are hardly extraordinary — iron supplements to raise their haemoglobin levels and paracetamol for fever.
“We took the blood samples to conduct all types of tests but since they are still babies, only small amounts of blood can be drawn at a time. This time they could only test CBC and vitamin tests, the DNA test will only happen later,” Pradeep Mirase, deputy director of the Nandankanan Zoological Park, told ThePrint.
Further blood tests will have to wait, since it is likely to take at least two weeks for the severely anaemic orangutan’s health to improve, Mirase added.
The five baby orangutans were found near the Badapali village in Balasore, Odisha, on 9 September. Since the animals are native only to the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, their discovery raised suspicions of wildlife trafficking networks in the area.
As the babies were shifted to a quarantine facility in the Nandankanan Zoological Park, the forest department and a special task force of the Odisha police launched an investigation into the matter. While they have questioned several people and combed through CCTV footage, a breakthrough is still awaited.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)