Musi oa
Thunya [Mosi wa Tunya ] " The Smoke Which
Thunders "), is an UNESCO World Heritage site
that is home to one half of the Mosi-oa-Tunya
— 'The Smoke Which Thunders' — known
worldwide as Victoria Falls on the Zambezi
River . The river forms the border between
Zambia and Zimbabwe , so the falls are shared
by the two countries, and the park is 'twin' to the
Victoria Falls National Park on the Zimbabwean
side.

?Mosi-oa-Tunya? comes from the Kololo or Lozi
language and the name is now used throughout
Zambia, and in parts of Zimbabwe.

Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park covers 66 km 2
(25 sq mi) from the Songwe Gorge below the
falls in a north-west arc along about 20 km of
the Zambian river bank. It froms the south-
western boundary of the city of Livingstone and
has two main sections, each with separate
entrances: a wildlife park at its north-western
end, and the land adjacent to the immense and
awe-inspiring Victoria Falls, which in the rainy
season is the world's largest curtain of falling
water.

It extends downstream from the falls
and to the south-east along the Batoka
Gorges.

The wildlife section of the park The wildlife park includes tall riverine forest with
palm trees, miombo woodland and grassland
with plenty of birds, and animals including
Angolan giraffe , Grant's zebra, warthog , sable ,
eland , Cape buffalo, impala and other antelope.
Animal numbers fell in droughts over the last
two decades.The park actually has ten rhinos
now with the latest calf being only a month and
two weeks.

The park before then contained two
southern white rhino which are not indigenous
and were imported from South Africa - they
were both poached during the night of June 6,
2007.


One was shot dead and got its horn
extracted, not far from the gate and the other
received serious bullet wounds but has
triumphed against all odds and still lives in the
park under twenty four hours surveillance. As of
June, 2009 the number of southern white rhino
in the park has been increased to five animals
with plans to introduce further animals in due
course.

The indigenous (black rhino) was
believed extinct in Zambia but has recently been
reintroduced in a pilot area).

African elephants
are sometimes seen in the park when they cross
the river in the dry season from the Zimbabwean
side. Hippopotamus and crocodile can be seen
from the river bank. Vervet monkeys and
baboons are common as they are in the rest of
the national park outside the wildlife section.


As of January 2009 the commercial wildlife
company, Lion Encounter, has been operating a
"walking with Lions" experience within the park,
with further plans to start a breeding
programme for Southwest African lions within
the soon to be expanded Dambwa Forest section
of the park.

Within the wildlife park is the Old
Drift cemetery where the first European settlers
were buried. They made camp by the river, but
kept succumbing to a strange and fatal illness.
They blamed the yellow/green-barked "fever
trees" for this incurable malady, while all the
time it was the malarial mosquito causing their
demise. Before long the community moved to
higher ground and the town of Livingstone
emerged.

Thank you for reading.