Angola is a wild destination in Africa. Around 46.7% remains forested, and there are thought to be a total of 300 species of mammal within the country as well as 900 species of birds. At the current time, around 15% of the country is protected, which it should be recognized, leaves a great deal of wilderness without any protection.

Given the large area of rainforest, it is perhaps not surprising that there are 13 species of primates which include both Chimpanzee and gorilla alongside 2 species of baboon: Kinda baboon and Chacma Baboon as well as Angolan Talapoin, Black-crested mangabey, Blue Monkey, Crested Mona Monkey, De Brazza’s Monkey,  Moustached Guenon, Schmidt’s Red-tailed Monkey.

Even outside of the forests, there are some fascinating wildlife. Luengue-Luiana National Park is a 30,000 square miles area within Angola that is a savannah ecosystem. This includes lions, though only around 30 survive here (which for context the Kruger has 1500 lions and is 1/4 of the size – so there is clearly a great deal of space for lion population growth; at the current time, there is neither enough protection for the lions themselves or their prey). It is also thought that cheetah still survive here as well. Leopards still survive, and even black rhino. Angola is thought to have 6000 elephants, though the Angolan section of the Kalahari-Zambezi transfrontier park was recently surveyed from the air, and a very large number of elephant carcasses were counted, so there is a fear that this population may have dropped a long way. While no official surveys have been done, there have been a number of reports of African forest elephants, which given the area of forest in the country, this seems quite reasonable.

Perhaps, one of the most notable species that are only found here is the giant sable antelope (this is a notable subspecies of the Giant Sable antelope).

The Kalahari-Zambezi transfrontier park does also extend into Angola.