Essay on Lights for Lions by Richard Turere

In Lights for Lions Richard creates a simple invention to prevent lions from attacking his livestock and to protect lions from extinction. Richard and his community experienced trauma with the lions attacking their livestock everyday. It was a very serious problem because their livestock was an important resource for living. Lions are very dangerous animals, so people didn’t think they could do anything about it. But Richard soon found that there was an even bigger problem and it was that “people kill them in retaliation for lions attacking their livestock." This was one of the main causes of the lion's demise. Richard began noticing how the lion population was decreasing and that there were only just 2,000 lions left in the country. Richard had to think of a plan to stop this disaster.

One day Richard was walking around with a flashlight in his hand when he noticed that the lions were scared of a walking light. That brought an idea to him and “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.” Richard risked inventing a simple system of lights, with simple materials that resembled a human walking around with a flashlight, hoping this invention would work out and help solve the problem. Richard’s simple invention was so successful and it solved the problem. Who would’ve ever thought that a 13 year old boy would be the one to solve the problem after all.

According to the text “His simple solution was so successful, his neighbors heard about it and wanted Lion Lights, too.” Richard was able to solve the problem with a very simple invention, and he was asked to install the lights for six other homes in his community, and from there the lights were used everywhere. Overall Richard solved the problem by taking the risk of inventing a simple light system to trick the lions away from the livestock. This made the people stop killing the lions, Which helped in maintaining the population of lions.