Nhenha

Nhenha was one of the five Birmingham Boys of South Africa’s Sabi Sand. Formerly Male #2, he was named Nhenha, “warrior”, because he was one of the front-runners when the coalition took over. Lion followers consider him the biggest of the five, tall and long, and he often patrolled alone.

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.

After Tinyo died at the end of 2021, Nhenha, then about eleven, joined his son or nephew, the Nkuhuma male, and they held two lionesses in the western Sabi Sand. In mid-2022 he fled the arriving Ndzhenga males. He was last seen in late 2022 and was mourned as the last Birmingham male in early 2023, after two months without a sighting.