ISLAMABAD: On a late August evening, rescue workers waded through waist-deep floodwaters of the Ravi River to reach an abandoned farmhouse in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Inside, six lions were found pacing in panic, their cages half-submerged. All were saved in time, though conservationists and activists say many more animals have drowned in silence.

Pakistan has been reeling from heavy monsoon rains since late July, with the crisis deepening toward the end of August when downpours coincided with water releases from dams in upstream India. For the first time in four decades, the Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej rivers all flooded simultaneously, inundating thousands of settlements and more than a million acres of farmland, destroying crops and sweeping away livestock.

Amid the national struggle to cope with the disaster, little attention has been paid to exotic animals like lions and tigers kept in private collections, makeshift zoos and even backyards. Many were left to drown, starve or wander into unfamiliar terrain.

“I cannot think of a crueler death than to be locked in a cage with water rising,” said journalist and animal rights defender Quatrina Hosein. “Owners who abandoned these animals must be held criminally responsible.”

STATUS SYMBOLS

In Pakistan, owning a lion is legal and often flaunted as a status symbol. Videos of men parading their pet cubs on TikTok or driving through city streets with lions on leashes have gone viral in recent years.

Behind the glamor is a licensing regime so lax it raises no real barriers.

According to Altamush Saeed, an animal rights lawyer, all it takes is around 100,000 rupees ($355) and proof of land ownership of at least 12 acres on paper to get a permit to own a big cat.

“There’s no serious vetting, no checks on whether you can provide veterinary care or safe housing,” he said. “Anyone with money can obtain a license. It’s not only a threat to the animals but also to human health, especially now with floodwaters spreading disease.”

Recent amendments to the Wildlife Management and Conservation Act of 1974 introduced stronger anti-cruelty clauses and empowered rangers to act against violators. But big cats remain excluded from the strictest protections, allowing lions and tigers to continue to be bought, bred and sold with little oversight.

Pakistan’s record-breaking floods have turned this negligence into a crisis. Indigenous wildlife has already been decimated, said Hosein.

“Whether you look at the Markhor or you look at other Pakistani indigenous animals, these floods have devastated habitats,” she said. “They have devastated the human population. They have devastated the livestock, the cattle. So we don't really have any accounting for the kind of damage that we are seeing to wildlife habitat.”

“We absolutely have no idea how many animals were in cages. What kind of animals were in cages [in private zoos]?”

Wildlife conservationist Azhar Ahmed Khan described how disasters magnify risks: “When the super floods come, animals are forced onto dykes or shallow areas. That’s when poaching spikes.”

“In the last super floods [in 2022], the hare, which we call the ‘khargosh,’ got almost extinct,” he said. “We do not find one single hare from Chhatta to Sukkur [in Sindh].”

PUBLIC HEALTH RISKS

Displaced people and animals are also forced to compete for shrinking ground, creating flashpoints of conflict. Experts warn the risk is no longer limited to animal welfare but also public health.

“These diseases are called zoonotic diseases, that can be transmitted from animals to humans,” said Dr. Maria Asif, a Lahore-based veterinarian. “There are many such diseases e.g. leptospirosis, which is transmitted by animal urine.”

Similarly, many such diseases can pass through animal feces, she added.

“In flood situations, where the possibility of infected animal feces mixed with floodwaters coming in contact with humans is much higher, the spread of such diseases is much more probable.”

Experts say solutions exist but require political will.

Ahmed suggested professional, large-scale breeding under scientific supervision, if only to redirect the thriving private market into regulated, safer channels.

“But without transparency and accountability, breeding programs risk becoming just another loophole,” he cautioned.

For now, Islamabad remains an outlier. In 2020, senior judge Justice Athar Minallah ordered the city zoo shut down, relocating some of its animals to international sanctuaries.

But outside the capital, enforcement remains weak, and lions continue to be caged in private compounds, often lacking even the basic requirements for survival.

Hosein argued Pakistan must phase out private zoos and fund sanctuaries instead:

“Thailand has a tiger conservation program, Cambodia rehabilitates elephants. Why can’t we do the same? We need provincial governments to fund sanctuaries, not licenses.”