A private zoo owner will be charged with keeping illegal orangutans smuggled from Indonesia after DNA tests showed 12 babies weren't born in Thailand, authorities said Wednesday.
Thai forestry police will charge later this week the owner of the Safari World zoo, which has been under investigation since 2003 for alleged wildlife smuggling.
Indonesian authorities recently demanded that Thailand speed up its investigation into the origins of the orangutans, and demanded they be returned if found to have been smuggled out of the country. "Indonesia would like to have them back," said forestry police chief Maj. Gen. Sawek Pinsinchai.
Orangutans are endangered under the international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.
Veterinarians at Thailand's Kasetsart University performed lab tests on 50 orangutans _ seven mothers and 43 offspring _ from the zoo to see which ones were born to legally purchased animals. "I've checked the DNA twice and there are 12 babies that are not related to the others," said Taneerat Santiwat, an associate professor at Kasetsart.