From Victoria Falls is possible to visit the nearby Botswana. Specifically Chobe National Park. Lion in Chobe River. Chobe National Park is home to huge herds of Elephant, Buffalo, and Burchell's Zebra and high densities of predators such as Lion, Leopard, Spotted Hyena and Cheetah. The park is also notable for the presence of more unusual antelope species like Roan and Sable, Puku, Tsessebe, Eland, Red Lechwe, Waterbuck, and the rare Chobe Bushbuck. Other more popular species such as Giraffe, Kudu, Warthog, Wildebeest and Impala also abound. Chobe National Park is one of the world's last remaining true wilderness areas and one of Africa's greatest game parks. Chobe is the third largest park in Botswana (after the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the remote Gemsbok National Park in the south-western corner of the country) and covers an area of 10,698 square kilometres. Chobe however, is unquestionably the most spectacular and diverse of Botswana's areas, even more so than the celebrated Okavango Delta. The Chobe area became popular in the mid-19th century with European hunters, who flocked to the area to shoot big game. Prior to this the wildlife had only been hunted by traditional means for subsistence by the native people. However, the white hunters introduced firearms to the indigenous people and this soon led to a massive increase in the killing of wildlife. The locals were encouraged to shoot far more than they needed in order to barter for European goods like tobacco, clothes, blankets and more guns. Later visitors exploited the timber of the indigenous forests along the Chobe River. Commercial logging began prior to World War I and then again from 1944-1955. Teak was the major timber species and these trees still exist in Chobe, but not along the river. Thus, the lumber industry drastically altered the vegetation along the Chobe River; however, many today blame Elephants for this carnage. The lumber mills along the river closed down in the mid 1950's because there were no more trees remaining. The Chobe Game Reserve was proclaimed by the colonial Bechuanaland Government in 1961 to control the widespread hunting and logging in the area. The park first opened to the public in August 1964 and it was upgraded to national park status in 1968 after Botswana's independence.