He was euthansed due to the skin cancer. The euthansia was planned in advance as Barcelona Zoo advertised ' last chance to see Snowflake' sometime before his death.
Its very unlikely as the law of genetics means you need two carriers of the 'white' gene to breed together and in Copito's case, that means inbreeding.. Barcelona tried it themselves by latterly keeping Copito with one of his own daughters(they said it was due to space problems but it was fairly obvious they were hoping to produce another white gorilla to take over when he died) but no white baby was forthcoming.
There are four of his grandchildren in the UK now- three males at Paignton and a female at Bristol- they could potentially all be recessive carriers and that is the only way- by breeding them together- and it clearly won't happen.
One of Snowflake's daughters 'Kena' is also now at Blackpool Zoo. She is a potentially also a recessive carrier of the white gene too but will only produce normal babies with an unrelated male.
I'm sure if the captive gorilla population gets small enough (which I don't think it is, but I've no idea), and cousinXcousin breeding is necessary (or more common?), another albino might well pop up somewhere.
One thing-if one does, wouldn't it make more sense to house the animal in a country that doesn't get as much sunlight? Like somewhere in Germany, UK, Scandinavia? If an albino gorilla is anything like a white cat/dog is (more prone to sunburn, higher incidence of skin cancer), Spain or one of the more southern, sunnier countries doesn't seem like a brilliant place to keep such an individual, to me anyway. I doubt a gorilla's going to let it's keeper apply sun-tan cream somehow
I once received a similar postcard from a friend of mine visiting Barcelona. In it she had a tally of the women with mullets that she had seen. Snowflake is certainly a beautiful animal!
