A Kenyan Teen's Discovery: Let There Be Lights To Save Lions
She has been studying the conflict between humans and lions, and her work led her to Richard. In one week, she monitored over 50 cases where lions attacked livestock. "It's a very, very serious problem," she says.
Her work studying the problem led her to Richard.
One night he was walking around with a flashlight and discovered the lions were scared of a moving light. A light went on inside him and an idea was born.
Three weeks and much tinkering later, Richard had invented a system of lights that flash around the cow shed, mimicking a human walking around with a flashlight. His system is made from broken flashlight parts and an indicator box from a motorcycle.
"The only thing I bought was a solar panel," which charges a battery that supplies power to the lights at night, Richard says. He calls the system Lion Lights.
"There have been a lot of efforts to try to protect the lions," Kahumbu says. "It's a crisis and everyone is looking for a solution. One idea was land leases, another was lion-proof fences. And basically no one even knew that Richard had already come up with something that worked."
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