In Pakistan’s Punjab, toxic air threatens wildlife amid a monitoring blind spot

Each November, a suffocating blanket of particulate matter envelops Pakistan’s Punjab province, turning the sky into a hazardous grey canopy. While the public health catastrophe for more than 20 million residents rightfully dominates headlines, a silent crisis unfolds across the region’s agricultural fields, urban green spaces and remaining wetlands. We know exactly what this toxic air does to human lungs, and we even track its precise impact on agricultural assets. A 2023 baseline study closely monitored 10 livestock farms, each housing 90-275 animals across the Lahore and Kasur districts, tracking the exact micrograms of fine particulate matter, carbon dioxide and potentially toxic trace elements inside cattle sheds. Researchers even screened the air for opportunistic bacterial pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus to safeguard the health of livestock. Yet, if a wild bird or mammal landed directly outside those monitored facilities, science would suddenly turn a blind eye. In a region choked by seasonal pollution, wildlife is suffering in a massive monitoring void. Sidra Safdar, associate professor of Wildlife and Ecology at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) in Pakistan and a co-author of the 2023 livestock study, explicitly identifies the root of this discrepancy: lack of funding and political will. “One reason for a massive data gap in wildlife monitoring associated with poor air quality is the lack of suitable resources and specialized equipment,” Safdar notes, emphasizing that real-time air quality tracking demands costly annual calibration. Pakistani farmers working in their field blanketed by smog in Peshawar, November 2019. Image…This article was originally published on Mongabay