San Francisco is a city with a rich history of characters. Beyond late icons like the Brown twins, Carol Doda and Emperor Norton, we also have a tendency to anthropomorphize things and creatures near and dear to our hearts. Case in point: Claude, the California Academy of Science’s albino alligator.
He is celebrating a major milestone: 30 years ago, on Sept. 15, 1995, Claude hatched in a Louisiana swamp, and the world hasn’t been the same since.
A star is hatched
While Claude’s ghostly appearance clearly resonates with his legions of fans, in the wild, it would be akin to a death sentence. Being bright white and nearly blind, ambushing prey would pose serious challenges, and the lack of melanin would also make him a “giant red blister” and susceptible to attacks from “other alligators [and] anything bigger than him,” said Jessica Witherly, a biologist at Cal Academy, during a phone call with SFGATE.
Fortunately, Claude was found before any of that could transpire, and he spent a couple of years at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park. Timing proved to be serendipitous for his San Francisco debut: In 2008, Cal Academy was getting ready to reopen in Golden Gate Park and looking for an alligator. Academy staff discovered Claude in Florida and knew he’d be a perfect fit. Having featured alligators since 1923, the academy knew how captivating these creatures were to visitors — plus, it’s estimated that there are only 100 to 200 albino alligators worldwide…