Gibbons are being pushed closer to extinction as the illegal pet trade continues to escalate.
In the last decade, hundreds of trafficked gibbons have been seized by authorities across southern Asia after being shot, stolen, or incarcerated, according to Mongabay.
What's happening?
Rehabilitation centers in North Sumatra have been overwhelmed by the number of small apes desperate for care, lacking the funds needed. With babies being the prime targets, many are ripped from their mothers and left orphaned after being rescued by organizations like the Sumatran Rescue Alliance (SRA) in Indonesia's North Sumatra province.
The SRA rehabilitation center near Gunung Leuser National Park was tasked to save three infants after a bust in March of 2025, where 16 gibbons were being smuggled by boat in the Strait of Malacca.
Sinan Serhadli, support officer associated with the SRA, told Mongabay, "Most gibbon babies die — that's the sad reality. Probably only one in 10 actually makes it to an end buyer. The waste is enormous."
The illegal trade challenges habitat destruction as the biggest threat to gibbon populations. Mongabay cited that between 2016 and 2025, at least 336 gibbons were confiscated across South and Southeast Asia, with 65 of those seized in just the first eight months of 2025.
Senior adviser at Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI), Richard Moore, said social media and the rising popularity of urban "mini-zoos" are partly to blame for the surge of demand.
Mongabay shared that YIARI's analysis of online trade and seizure records since 2015 shows that an average of 130 gibbons are traded annually across the country — roughly 90% of which are juveniles or infants captured from forests in Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. And those are only the numbers they're aware of.
Moore emphasized that gibbons are not sustainable as pets. Having the facilities and resources available for wildlife authorities to direct these animals for the best odds of survival is vital. However, now the growing problem is that most of these rescue depots are at capacity.
Susan Cheyne, vice chair of the primate specialist group at IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, told Mongabay, "In an ideal world, there wouldn't be a need for any rescue centers, because we'd have stopped the trade. But we're not in an ideal world."
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Definitely 👍 Why is gibbon trafficking concerning?
Already an endangered species, the growing demand for gibbons in the illegal pet trade puts them on the brink of extinction. When a species disappears, it weakens entire ecosystems with rippling effects.
The killing of mother gibbons to get to their young throws the complex social structures these animals live in off-kilter, making the impact catastrophic with years of repercussions ahead.
What's being done about endangered gibbons?
As the number of gibbons being taken for trade continues to rise, so does the concern. A facility's inability to take in any more gibbons has efforts now focused on release back into the wild and trafficking prevention. It's much easier said than done, as many of these animals are so traumatized by the violence and their time in captivity that they may never survive on their own.
Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) sends sniffer dogs to Indonesian ports and airports to catch wildlife being smuggled between islands. It also works to provide intelligence to support seizures and arrests.
Because gibbons typically live in monogamous pairs, pair bonding has become crucial to their rehabilitation and odds for success in the wild. But it is an arduous task that doesn't always prove successful in the end, which is why putting a stop to the trade and making sure gibbons aren't taken from the wild must be the main priority.
"Governments should really start to collaborate and not just focus locally," said Femke den Haas, co-founder of JAAN, per Mongabay. "We won't see this ending before we really have a very powerful collaboration between all the countries [involved]."
Indonesian law provides a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment for anyone who transports, trades, keeps, or kills a protected species, but legal loopholes, online trade, and weak enforcement aren't doing the gibbons any favors. There's also suspicion that some authorities themselves are involved.
Kanitha Krishnasamy, director for TRAFFIC — an international NGO that monitors the wildlife trade — told Mongabay, "It's time to move beyond only focusing and penalizing low-level middlemen that are treated as the cost of doing business, when the real masterminds continue to pilfer and profit."
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