Automatic flashlights to keep livestock safe

Living alongside predators such as lions, leopards, and hyenas is a major challenge in many areas, especially for people who rely entirely on their livestock for income. Preventing human–carnivore conflict is an important goal, both for the local communities and for the conservation of large carnivores.

In many regions of Africa, local communities outside major cities rely on livestock herding for their livelihoods. In areas where such communities border the habitat of lions, hyenas, and leopards, livestock attacks occur regularly—often at night. A young Kenyan herder, Richard Turere, noticed that when he walked outside at night with a flashlight, lions and other carnivores stayed away. This inspired him to develop an automatic system called Lion Lights, in which lights powered by solar panels emit irregular flashes during the night. Research has already shown that this indeed leads to fewer livestock attacks.

So far, this technology has mainly been used in East Africa. The Leo Foundation is working to make Lion Lights available to people in West and Central Africa, where conflict between carnivores and livestock herders is also a major issue. To this end, we are collaborating with three local partners and their teams in Guinea, Benin, and Cameroon. Earlier this year, we sent each of them 40 Lion Lights. We then organized an online training session, where our Kenyan colleague and Lion Lights expert, Dr. Francis Lesilau, gave detailed instructions to the teams on installation and maintenance. The first Lion Lights have now been installed, and the local teams are monitoring their impact. For this purpose, an online form was developed in collaboration with Wageningen University, which can be completed via a mobile app.

Conflicts between people and large carnivores are a major problem for livestock herders, who sometimes see only one solution: to find and kill the “problem lion”. As a result, populations of lions and other carnivores have come under intense pressure in recent years. And as the habitat of these large predators continues to shrink due to habitat loss, such human-wildlife conflicts are only increasing. We hope that through the use of Lion Lights, it will become possible for people and large carnivores to coexist sustainably.