I suspect the same as for starting underwater now. The "newly discovered animals" are pretty awesome IMO, though I don't think much of the land critters in scuba gear.I think the programmers made the game start in the underwater part to encourage players to use it and spend more money there.
What I'd like to know is why the entire thing runs S O S L O W L Y now. My screen freezes repeatedly when I try to do anything at all and finally it just crashes. It makes me not want to play at all and I'm certainly not going to buy more stuff to add to the load while this is happening.