Gibbons in Peril as Trafficking Peaks
Gibbons, nature’s famed acrobats now already on the brink, are tumbling deeper into peril with seizures from illegal trade climbing over the past decade and reaching an all-time high in 2025.
Over 336 individual gibbons were confiscated across South and Southeast Asia between January 2016 and August 2025, TRAFFIC’s rapid analysis released on World Gibbon Day reveals.
Numbers seized until August this year already account for 20% of the total confiscated during the entire decade studied, mostly from trafficking attempts.
“Illegal trade is pushing gibbons from the treetops to the edge, and these figures are a clear siren that pressure on them is mounting,”
Ramachandra Wong, TRAFFIC’s Senior Crime Analyst.
Mark Eastment | Dreamstime.com
These small apes that occur in 11 countries from the northeastern tip of India to Indonesia are known not just for their agility, but also their spectacular song, often heard as duets among mating pairs to strengthen bonds.
But with most of their 20 recognised species now endangered and populations in the wild in decline, the illegal pet trade is fast quieting their chorus.
The data revealed striking patterns — Southeast Asia emerged as the region behind most of the seizures and gibbons confiscated, with Indonesia and Viet Nam being the most affected countries in gibbon trafficking, historically.
However, in the most recent years, data showed a shift towards India and Malaysia with the two emerging as the most implicated in the illegal gibbon trade chain in 2025, with gibbons moving in the Malaysia-to-India direction.
Numerous attempts to smuggle gibbons in air passenger luggage between the two countries, driven by India’s growing appetite for exotic pets, is partly to blame for the shift. Many don’t survive the journey, resulting in these animals, mostly juveniles, dying.
“Every seizure and arrest, while devastating for the animals, is a small win that provides a big opportunity to investigate the people behind this crime. Who is commissioning the poaching and trafficking, and who are the ultimate recipients? 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,”
Kanitha Krishnasamy, Director for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia.
In a single incident in May, seven dead gibbons were found in the possession of two people at a hotel in Mumbai, India. They had flown from Malaysia with nine primates hidden in their check-in luggage.
Available information showed that 83 seizure incidents resulted in an arrest with 139 people caught in relation to gibbon trafficking during the period. Arrests, prosecutions and convictions in Indonesia far outnumbered those elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia.
Data also showed that about a quarter involved the surrender of gibbons illegally kept as pets, where over 90% of these occurred in Indonesia.
