Lion Lights: My Invention That Made Peace With Lions by Richard Turere and Shelly Pollock

When Richard Tuere was a nine-year-old boy guarding his father's cows, his biggest fear was the lions lurking in the nearby grass, waiting to grab an animal. Richard's family's farm bordered the south side of Nairobi National Park in Kenya. This meant many different wild animals including lions were roaming nearby. Their cows were valuable to Richard's family because they provided meat, milk and hides. But to the lion, a cow was a source of easy food!

Richard and his family are Maasai, a people who once wandered throughout Kenya's vast plains with their cows and goats. They travelled across the plains, following the wet and dry seasons. Now however, they live in small villages called manyattas. Their animals still need good grass and water, so during the dry season, they have to herd them further away from the manyatta. But this also meant risking an attack by lions.

At night Richard made sure the family's cows were inside their boma, an area fenced with thorny acacia branches. Although these branches kept the cattle in, they did not prevent the lions from attacking. 

Richard and other Maasai herders tried different ways to keep the lions at bay but nothing seemed to work. Richard tried a scarecrow, conservationists tried chain link fences, and the government tried payments to farmers for their lost cattle. But still the lions kept killing cattle and the Maasai kept killing lions.

The lions were an important part of Kenya's tourist industry: people came from all over the world to see them. So a solution needed to be found.

Richard loved to tinker with electronics, taking apart televisions and radios. Then one morning, when he was eleven-years-old, he found his father's bull dead inside their boma. This only made Richard more determined to find a solution to the lion problem.

His clue came one night when he noticed that whenever he walked around the boma with a flashlight the lions stayed away. Maybe he could use this discovery plus his skill with electronics to keep the lions away.

Discussion

Lion Lights tells the remarkable story of  a young Kenyan inventor, Richard Turere who designed "lion lights" to keep lions from preying on his father's cattle.

 Richard grew up on a farm bordering the southern, unfenced area of Nairobi National Park. The lack of fencing meant that zebra, wildebeest and other wildlife freely roamed out of the park onto nearby farms. They were followed by the lions who fed off these animals. However, lions, and to a lesser extent cheetahs found cattle to be much easier prey. Cattle are very important to the Maasai, as they are the currency in their culture. Their wealth is in their cattle.

After continuing attacks, Richard, at the age of eleven, discovered that lions were frightened of someone walking around the boma with a flashlight. He decided to develop a system of flashing lights set up around the perimeter of the boma. Initially, these were LED lights set up to flash using the light indicator from a vehicle, powered by a battery. This worked, reducing lions attacks almost immediately. He called this invention, Lion Lights.

In 2011, Paula Kambuhu, director of the Kenyan Land Conservation Trust and chairperson of the Nairobi National Park and her colleagues learned about Richard's unique invention during their field work that year. He had devised his Lion Lights without having had any prior training in electronics. Impressed, Kambuhu was able to help him obtain a scholarship to one of Kenya's top schools, Brookhouse International School. 

In 2013, Richard was invited to give a talk at the TED 2013 Conference in California. He was able to patent his invention, but not soon enough to receive money for what he had devised. Now twenty-two years old Richard is a graduate of The African Leadership University located in Kigali, Rwanda.

You can listen to Richard's TED Talk here. You can learn more about Richard's work through his website, lion-lights.org

Lion Lights offers young readers Richard Turere's remarkable story, highlighting is determination and creativity in spite of enormous odds. His story is one that demonstrates how one person can make a huge difference in the lives of many. Perhaps the more important message is that Richard also showed that sustainable solutions can be found to human-wildlife conflict.

Accompanying Richard's account are the realistic illustrations by artist Sonia Possentini. Lion Lights also includes a detailed note, About The Maasai, a list of Maasai words, and where to find more information on subjects relevant to this story. There is also a short biography of Richard Turere at the very back.

Book Details:

Lion Lights: My Invention That Made Peace With Lions by Richard Turere and Shelly Pollock
Thomaston, Maine: Tilbury House Publishers      2022