The next day, city officials passed a $300 million master plan that had been recently drafted to deal with the infrastructure problems and inadequate exhibits.

[8] The number of species exhibited has been reduced from 400 in 1993 to around 280, coinciding with construction of larger naturalistic enclosures holding animals in bigger groups.

[citation needed] In 1998, the zoo opened Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains, followed by Red Ape RainForest in 2000, the Komodo Dragon Exhibit, the Winnick Family Children Zoo in 2001, the Entry Plaza, Children's Discovery Center and Sea Lion Cliffs (now Sea Life Cliffs) in 2005, Campo Gorilla Reserve in November 2007, Elephants of Asia in the winter of 2010, and the LAIR (Living Amphibians, Invertebrates, and Reptiles) in 2012.

She then had full run of the zoo for an hour as TV-news copters hovered overhead and visitors were evacuated before she was tranquilized.

The hillside exhibit is dotted with boulders, palm trees, and an artificial termite mound, and features a waterfall next to a tall rock ledge where the troop's leader can survey much of the area.

[20] The LAIR (Living Amphibians, Invertebrates, and Reptiles), which opened in 2012, is a $14 million indoor-outdoor exhibit complex that focuses on herps and terrestrial arthropods.

[21][22][23] Red Ape Rain Forest, a recreation of a Southeast Asian jungle, opened in 2000 and houses Bornean orangutans.

The 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) mesh enclosure, which has openings for the guest path to go through, is shaped like a horizontal donut and back-dropped by hibiscus, bamboo, and rubber trees.

The apes can climb on artificial sway poles, branches, and vines placed throughout the exhibit or wade in a shallow stream.

Visitors enter the exhibit through an Indonesian pagoda, continue over the stream on a deck bridge, and arrive at a small pavilion with a glass viewing window.

[27] It opened in 2014 and houses the uakari, southern black howler monkey, red-bellied piranha, keel-billed toucan, harpy eagle, Goliath bird-eating spider, giant river otter, emerald tree boa, cotton-top tamarin, Baird's tapir, jaguar and other species.

Animal care, grounds maintenance, construction, education, public information, and administrative staff are city employees.

GLAZA's primary responsibility is to seek and provide financial support for the zoo's programs and capital projects.

GLAZA also provides support through membership, organizing special events and travel programs, producing publications, coordinating one of the largest zoo volunteer programs in the country, administering the contract for visitor services concessions within the zoo, and supporting community relations, and public relations.

Among other features, it includes a state-of-the-art intensive care unit, an on-site commissary, a surgical suite with observation area, and research facilities.

The area also features live webcam feeds of the California Condors, which are not currently exhibited because of the sensitive nature of the rescue work.

The program was established in 1981 in the hopes of "a vision of providing a racially, ethnically, economically, and geographically diverse group of motivated students an enriched curriculum in animal and biological sciences.

"[36] The Zoo Magnet Center offers 300 Los Angeles high school students a college preparatory curriculum focused on animal studies and biological sciences.