The wildlife park includes tall riverine forest with palm trees,
miombo woodland and grassland with plenty of birds, and animals including
Angolan giraffe,
Burchell's zebra,
warthog,
sable,
African buffalo,
impala and other antelope. Animal numbers have fallen in droughts since 2000. The park currently has ten
southern white rhinos, including calves. These are not indigenous to Zambia; they were imported from South Africa (the indigenous
black rhino had been extirpated from the county, though a pilot project is reintroducing them in
North Luangwa National Park). The original introduction consisted of two rhinos; both were poached during the night of June 6, 2007. One was shot dead not far from the gate and its horn extracted; the other suffered serious bullet wounds but survived and still lives in the park under 24-hour surveillance. By 2009 the number of rhinos had been increased to five animals, with plans to introduce further ones in due course. As of 2022, there were 10 white rhinos in the park.
African elephants are often 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. 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-and-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. == The falls section of the park ==