Qualla: Nsumbu National Park

Nsumbu National Park: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Do not swim here. That advice sounds picturesque until you see the crocodiles basking on the rocks at Kasaba Bay and understand that they mean it. Nsumbu National Park occupies 2,000 square kilometers on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in northern Zambia, and the lake shore inside the park - 80 kilometers of it, wrapping four bays and Nundo Head Peninsula - is some of the most dramatic water-and-mountain country in Africa. The balancing rocks at Sumbu Bay look painted on. Views stretch east across open water to the mountains of Tanzania and the DRC. Kasaba Bay Lodge, once the destination of wealthy international travelers flown in on small planes, sits abandoned since 2006 - one casualty of a half-century in which conflict and economics have taken turns keeping visitors away.

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Nsumbu National Park: The Rise and the Fall

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the 1970s, Nsumbu stood with South Luangwa and Kafue as one of the three great national parks of Zambia. Elephants were common. Lions hunted in open country. Kasaba Bay Lodge flew guests directly from Lusaka to Kasaba Bay Airport, a brief hop that bypassed the 340 kilometers o...

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Nsumbu National Park: Two Ecosystems in One Park

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Most of Nsumbu lies within the Central Zambezian miombo woodlands, a broad ecoregion that covers much of south-central Africa with broad-leaved trees that flush red before green each October. But pockets of something rarer grow here too: Itigi-Sumbu thicket, an endangered and nea...

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Nsumbu National Park: The Birds and the Fish

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Come with binoculars. Flamingos stand pink against the lake margins. African skimmers cut low over the water with their scissor-bills. Whiskered terns, herons, storks, and fish eagles patrol the shore. Pel's fishing owl, that great rust-colored ghost of African rivers, is occasio...

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Nsumbu National Park: The Comeback

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 2017, the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Zambia's Department of National Parks and Wildlife formed the Nsumbu Tanganyika Conservation Project. Under project manager Craig Zytkow, the work has grown considerably: better road access from Kasama to Mporokoso to Sumbu (tarred fo...

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