Just-so story: why the gorilla was white

With apologies to Rudyard Kipling, having in my younger years seen many pictures of Snowflake, the world's one and only albino gorilla (ever) in National Geographic, I did kinda wonder why there was never more than one.  I think that Snowflake had offspring (I'm too lazy to check on that right now), so that albino gene might still be available, but there has never been another albino gorilla.   Considering our success at propagating white tigers, that's a little surprising.

Anyway, research has discovered why Snowflake was an albino.  This article also explained to me that there are four different genetic mutations in humans that cause albinism.  I never knew that.

The reason that Snowflake was albino was:   his father was the brother of either his mother's mother or his mother's father.  I.e., his father was his great-uncle.  Inbreeding gives rise to recessive genes, and that's what happened.

Albino gorilla Snowflake was inbred  (according to gene sequencing)

The article points out that reduced populations and smaller regions to live in might cause this to happen again. 

(Provided gorillas don't go extinct first.)

Such happy thoughts.