I've just been reading through all of this, and I was particularly struck by the Snowdon Aviary discussion.
I, as a regular visitor to London Zoo (it being about twenty minutes from where I live), was rather hoping that they do change the Aviary into a monkey walkthrough. Personally, I think that the gibbons would have a great time there. As far as I am aware, Whipsnade don't have plans to move them out of offshow (they might even move them to another zoo, which I really would not want to happen). All we'd need to do is block off the bridge and add some viewing areas and there you go. Jimmy and Yoda would have a great time mucking around in there, though I think that they really have to wash as much bird poo as possible off of the 'poo trees' on your left in the exhibit!
As for female okapi, this is a good thing to hear. I was always wondering what happened to Elila, did she die? Anyhow, glad to see Bu will have a new female to join him.
And the aye-ayes. I, to be honest, am slightly pensive. I really WANT it to work, dearly, as I love the creatures and I think it could work. But, the male (the one individual they keep from the original pair) is very stressprone, so lord knows what'll happen when they finally do let them in. As well as that, the tarpaulin they've put over their enclosure as a roof really isn't secure enough; one gust of wind and the tarpaulin goes up.
I checked the inventory and it said they have epaulette sharks! Where? Most likely offshow, but where and why?!
Love the spider exhibit, have visited five times now, three of those with friends who have arachnophobia. Two of them have come out virtually cured hahaha
(I am also very happy to see the fen raft spider, that is a species I have been meaning to see for a long time; in the wild of course!)
I should probably mention that blue-throated macaws have been brought in to replace Jade and Echo and the red-tailed cockatoos over by the hyacinths, and they do look very magnificent (although one of the hyacinths was having a stand off with a blue-throat through the mesh so ummmmmmmmmmm!
There are also laughingthrushes in the Pavilion now, which is nice to see
In terms of future developments outside of Land of the Lions and my gibbon suggestion, I would want to see hornbills (like the big Asian ones, like Great or god forbid Rhinoceros hornbills). I agree about the koalas, they definitely should get some. And other animals I would love to see would be drills (they could go in the current Sulawesi macaque exhibit when they find another home), fennec foxes (old favourites of mine) and maybe some birds-of-paradise (a guy can dream).
