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Chester Zoo responds to Kanye West’s tweet about them

Ye – who is currently in the middle of a media storm following a very public episode that we won't delve too deeply into – this morning tweeted a screenshot of some age-old Chester Zoo plans.

The Manc - 23rd July 2020

In what is possibly the most unlikely Twitter exchange of 2020 so far, Chester Zoo responded to a Tweet by Kanye West today after the rapper posted about them on the social platform.

Ye – who is currently in the middle of a media storm following a very public episode that we won’t delve too deeply into – this morning tweeted a screenshot of some age-old Chester Zoo plans.

In the tweet, the rapper expressed his support for a huge development that the zoo had planned to build a whopping 10 years ago – before it was sadly shelved.

The popular north west (which is coincidentally Kanye’s daughter’s name) attraction had scrapped the plans for a gigantic biodome labelled the ‘heart of Africa’ back in 2010.

In his post, Ye wrote: “YZY team loves Proctor Matthews Architects ‘Africa Heart’ bio dome.”

However it didn’t take long for Chester Zoo to log onto Twitter and let The College Dropout down, responding with: “Hey ye – Glad you love it! Thanks for highlighting our work to help save endangered species from extinction.

“Unfortunately these are old plans now, but once we’ve saved our zoo following the Coronavirus pandemic, things like this might be possible again.”

The zoo’s £225 million Heart of Africa Biodome was given approval by Cheshire West and Chester Council in 2010 before it was eventually cancelled.

The Heart of Africa Rainforest Biome would have formed the flagship first phase of a radical new masterplan – Natural Vision – for Chester Zoo.

Simulating natural African rainforest habitats the dramatic undulating responsive roofscape and enclosure would have provided an immersive sanctuary to rainforest animals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, including some of the worlds most endangered species such as Gorillas and Okapi.

In response to the zoo’s tweet, some Twitter users have suggested that West could finally make the biodome happen for the zoo, and thus help them climb out of their current financial diificulties.

But he’s probably got bigger fish to fry right now.