Because in nature lions sleep or rest as much as 21 hours a day, a fact that few of your visitors understand. And after all, when they see them on television, they’re obviously running and catching and eating something or trying to hurt each other, or what have you. But resting being indolent is most of what a lion does. Dr. George Schaller who’s lion studies in the Serengeti are very famous, said that they could be unbelievably boring and he’d be sitting there in his land rover, watching a pride of lions all day long, and it would go on into the night and they would be resting. So it is perhaps too much to expect to want an animal exhibit, no matter how it’s designed to make things interesting all the time. I tried when we did the World of Birds to have a rain storm there, and it would rain once or twice a day. This was very interesting. It was a normal behavior, it occurred in nature, especially in rainforest and the birds would go through wonderful washing behaviors and generally seemed interested and more active after a rain.
