system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How are the Columbian Hippos (Escobar's Hippos) not horribly inbred if they started from a population of 4?

As per title, even if hippos don't suffer from inbreeding to the same extent, surely over so many generations it has to have some effect? 
Estimates put the population at around 100 with potential to grow higher.
gpt
Not sure about the hippos in general but the answer is that, yes, they would be horrifically inbred; however, that would now just be the new "normal" for the population. Any genetic defects in the founding group are going to be passed down to the descendants unless natural selection is able to snuff them out effectively. The types of defects that are present in the founder group, however, are pretty much up to random chance, so you can't always be 100% sure of what the effects will be.

Look at cheetahs for example. They bottlenecked hard a few times 100,000 years ago and never recovered, their genetic diversity is estimated to be about 1% that of other mammal species. Due to high rates of genetic issues, they suffer from low fertility, high juvenile mortality rate, and high susceptibility to infections.