Historically, some facilities intentionally inbred animals to guarantee the expression of recessive traits like albinism or leucism. For example, nearly all white tigers in captivity trace their lineage back to a single wild-caught male, resulting in decades of severe inbreeding that caused cleft palates, scoliosis, and immune deficiencies.
: This metric measures how closely related an animal is to the rest of the population. Zoos prioritize breeding individuals with low mean kinship.
Albinism is a rare genetic condition caused by mutations in genes responsible for melanin production, such as the (tyrosinase). It is typically inherited as an autosomal recessive trait , meaning an individual must inherit a mutated allele from both parents to express the phenotype.
