Mfumo

Mfumo, formerly Samson or Male #4, was one of the five Birmingham Boys of South Africa’s Sabi Sand. His name means “authority” or “to rule”; many guides thought him the biggest of the brothers, though followers who compared photos found Nhenha taller and Mfumo merely bulkier, with a bigger head.

The Birmingham Boys, also called the Gowrie males, were born in 2010–2011 in the Birmingham Pride of the Timbavati, beside Kruger National Park in South Africa, sons of the older Birmingham males. Around 2014 they moved south, and in 2015 the five drove the ageing Southern Matimba, Hairy Belly and Ginger, out of the northern Sabi Sand, taking the Nkuhuma, Torchwood and Styx prides; the takeover cost the lives of several cubs and lionesses. By late 2017 they also ruled the Tsalala, Mhangeni and Ntsevu prides further south, and they held the Sabi Sand for about seven years, alongside the Mapogos, Majingilane and Matimbas in its history.

Mfumo was regularly seen with Tinyo and Nsuku in the Torchwood and Nkuhuma areas until about 2018. He later disappeared; one ranger said he was believed to have died of a snakebite, but this may confuse him with another brother. By early 2020 only Nhenha and Tinyo remained.