Richard Turere's Lion Lights: flashing solar bulbs that fool lions with a moving torch

BBC News reported in 2018 on Richard Turere, a Kenyan Maasai herder who, aged 11, invented a solar-powered light system to keep lions out of his family's cattle pen. Their land lies between Nairobi National Park and the township of Kitengela, and the family was losing as many as nine cows a week. A scarecrow worked until the lions ignored it. A dark shed hid the cows from sight but not from smell.

The breakthrough came one night when he walked around with a torch and, for once, the lions did not attack. He built Lion Lights to mimic the torch's movement without anyone keeping watch. His mother, Veronica, says there were no more problems after the lights.

By 2018 the system was in 750 homesteads in his community and beyond. Version 2.0 costs $200 to install, usually half paid by NGOs and half by the herder, and has 16 flashing settings. Richard added an automatic mode because people tried to repair the lights themselves, and a homemade wind turbine for cloudy days.

Lions learned to ignore a static scarecrow, so the deterrent had to move.

A moving light imitates a human guard, which lions treat as danger.

Solar power and cheap parts keep the installed cost near $200.

NGOs share the cost, so households can afford it.

Find what already works in a small accidental observation, then automate it cheaply instead of paying for round-the-clock guarding.

Richard won a scholarship to a Nairobi school, and versions of his lights have been adopted from as far as Argentina and India. The BBC reports that support for him and for the Lion Lights stalled in recent years, and that although he became the youngest Kenyan patent holder at 15, he did not patent the idea soon enough to benefit properly as its inventor.