Breeding
During his life at the zoo, he fathered 22 offspring (of whom six survived to adulthood) with three females and lived to see his grandchildren. None of his offspring were albino. His last son, Urko, died in August 2003. At first, the Barcelona Zoo was not aware just how unique of a specimen Snowflake was. They sent a message to Sabater Pi saying, "Please send more white gorillas." The zoo later hoped to produce an entire family group of white gorillas through selective breeding.
He was thought to be between 38 and 40 years old; the average lifespan of a gorilla in the wild is 25. Since 2001, he had suffered from an unusual form of skin cancer, almost certainly related to his albinism condition, known as oculocutaneous albinism type 1 or OCA1. In September 2003, it was publicly announced that he was dying. Thousands visited the zoo to say goodbye before he was euthanized in November 2003.
Read more about this topic: Snowflake (gorilla)
Famous quotes containing the word breeding:
“Good breeding ... differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“A man’s own good breeding is his best security against other people’s ill-manners.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)