Wildlife of Zambia

The wildlife of Zambia refers to the natural flora and fauna of Zambia. This article provides an overview, and outline of the main wildlife areas or regions, and compact lists of animals focusing on prevalence and distribution in the country rather than on taxonomy. More specialized articles on particular groups are linked from here.

Wildlife ecologists use the World Wildlife Fund's classification of biomes and ecoregions. The most widespread in Zambia are those comprising miombo, mopane and Baikiaea woodland savanna, with grasslands (mainly flooded grasslands) and evergreen forest also present. The chief determinant of the distribution of ecoregions and wildlife is climate, see Climate of Zambia for more detail.

Zambia's "big game" wildlife (including sports fishing) is the foundation of its tourism industry, now one of its biggest employers and foreign-exchange earners; Victoria Falls and cultural events come second and third in importance. However for domestic tourism, this order is reversed, and wildlife is not as important, since the national parks and game viewing tours, through which the great majority of the wildlife is experienced, are priced and marketed to international tourism.

In the early part of the 20th century most of Zambia's rural areas supported wildlife at levels similar to that seen in national parks today, and the 'big five' game animals were widespread outside reserves and parks. Of them today, the rhinoceros is almost extinct, the elephant and lion are found almost exclusively in parks, the African buffalo is found in or close to parks. Of the other large animals, only the spotted hyena, Nile crocodile, hippopotamus, and lechwe are found in numbers outside parks, the former from its success as a scavenger, the latter three since their aquatic habit has less overlap with human activities.

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