Chongo

Chongo was one of the six Bila Shaka brothers of Kenya’s Masai Mara. His name is Swahili for “bad eye”: one of his eyes is damaged, and Angama’s guides wrote that his one-eyed stare had captivated them for months. In later years he and Kiok became the main males of the Paradise Pride.

The Bila Shaka Boys, also called the Six Pack, were six brothers born in 2014 in the Moniko Pride of the Olare Motorogi Conservancy, north-east of Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve, sired by the famous males Lolparpit and Olbarnoti. Around 2018, still young, they began taking over from the ageing Four Musketeers. Named after the Bila Shaka lugga, a watercourse at the heart of the Marsh Pride’s land, they went on to dominate the Marsh, Topi, Paradise and Rekero prides, and spent time in the Mara Triangle.

In January 2025 Chongo was badly injured in the stomach while hunting buffalo with the Paradise lionesses; a vet treated him, and he was eating and mating again the same day. In 2026 he went missing after chasing intruding males away from the Rekero Pride; why he disappeared has not been established. He is not the same lion as Chongo of the Saba Bora in the Serengeti.