Every November, Punjab in Pakistan is shrouded by dense particulate pollution, transforming skies into a dangerous grey haze. Though the health risks to over 20 million people command attention, another crisis quietly devastates the province’s farmlands, city parks, and dwindling wetlands.
Tracking the Damage
Researchers have a clear understanding of how toxic air affects human lungs and agricultural assets. A 2023 study monitored 10 livestock farms in Lahore and Kasur, each with 90-275 animals, measuring fine particulate matter, carbon dioxide, and toxic trace elements in cattle sheds. The study also screened for bacterial pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus to protect livestock health.
Despite this, wildlife outside these monitored areas remains largely unstudied. In a region plagued by seasonal pollution, wildlife suffers due to a significant lack of monitoring. The absence of adequate resources and specialized equipment is a major reason for this data gap in wildlife health related to poor air quality.
Sidra Safdar, an associate professor of Wildlife and Ecology at Pakistan’s University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and co-author of the 2023 study, points to insufficient funding and political will as the core issue. She notes that real-time air quality monitoring requires expensive annual calibration. Safdar emphasizes that animal welfare remains a low priority in government efforts to address air pollution.
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The Punjab Wildlife and Parks Department disputes this characterisation, stating that ignoring wildlife is “absolutely not the case.” While he does not detail specific funding for air-quality sensors, Muhammad Ramzan, the department’s deputy chief wildlife ranger for publicity, notes the deployment of monitoring teams to migratory sites and strict veterinary observation for captive animals.
Regarding wild populations, Ramzan suggests that native animals and birds have natural resilience to environmental stresses. However, the scale of pollution makes exposure unavoidable.
The Physics of the Haze
The sheer scale of the pollution makes exposure inevitable. In January 2026, Lahore’s air quality index (AQI) spiked above 500, deep into the “hazardous” category, temporarily making it the second-most polluted major city on the planet, according to IQAir. In 2025, Pakistan’s average concentration of fine particulate matter exceeded World Health Organization guidelines by more than 13 times, according to the air quality monitoring platform.
A 2024 review analysing the impact of smog on wildlife outlines a grim physiological reality. Ground-level ozone and fine particulates easily infiltrate the respiratory tracts of wild animals, triggering chronic inflammation, restricting oxygen intake, and causing irreversible lung damage. Beyond severe breathing difficulties, the chemical cocktail of winter smog, often laced with heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, acts as an environmental endocrine disruptor. These pollutants can hijack sex hormones, leading to severely depressed fertility rates and developmental deformities in wildlife embryos.
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To understand why this pollution becomes so lethal in November, one must look at Punjab’s specific emission sources and winter meteorology. Throughout the year, the region generates massive baseline pollution from vehicles, industrial emissions, and thousands of brick kilns. This load spikes heavily in November when farmers burn crop leftovers to clear their fields for winter planting.
As seasonal temperatures drop, a meteorological phenomenon known as a “temperature inversion” occurs: a layer of cold air becomes trapped near the Earth’s surface by warmer air above it. Combined with stagnant winter wind speeds, this inversion acts as a physical lid. It prevents the combined agricultural smoke and urban exhaust from dispersing into the upper atmosphere, locking the toxic haze at ground level exactly where local wildlife lives and breathes.
At veterinary clinics across Lahore, the theoretical damage described in academic journals translates into everyday emergencies. Dr Syed Muhammad Faheem Ahmad, a veterinary surgeon and lecturer at the UVAS Pet Centre, treats the immediate victims. The surgeon reports seeing a massive increase in cases during smog; just like in humans, the animals also experience the same symptoms and face a lot of problems. The veterinary surgeon pointed out that his animal patients — birds, cats, dogs, and wildlife — were consistently presented with severe respiratory and ocular irritation, characterised by sneezing, nasal discharge, lethargy, and laboured breathing.
The researchers also noted that for migratory birds that rely on visual cues like star constellations or species that utilise specific scents and magnetic fields to handle, the nitrogen oxides and heavy metals in smog effectively blind their sensory organs, knocking them off their ancient migratory routes.
