I totally agree and unbelievably the whole zoo is brand new! The owner told me that the very fine sand (it is extremely light-coloured) cost a fortune to ship in from a special company but the lions could most definitely use more than sand and 3 rocks as natural substrate. At least they are not on cement like the clouded leopards and Eurasian lynx.
I'm fairly certain that there are just the 3 lions that can be seen in this photo and I was told that the entire Cat Complex cost around $250,000 as all of the work was done in-house. That includes a total of 6 exhibits: African Lion, Bengal Tiger #1 (including a pure white one), Bengal Tiger #2(white), Cougar, Clouded Leopard and Eurasian Lynx. There is also a small platform inside the indoor viewing area for the 2 largest enclosures that upon my visit included a single tiger cub that was held down and visitors were posing with it for an extra fee.
