A San Francisco-wide scavenger hunt with the prize of a plushie in the shape of him. You can pick up a new library card with his image. A glamorous swamp soiree will take place in his honor, featuring dinner made by “Top Chef” alum Melissa King followed by dancing on Wed/10. A second children’s book about him is coming out. There will be a party on September 14, complete with an ice “cake,” real cupcakes for humans celebrants, photo ops with the big guy, and of course, a birthday sing-a-long.
It’s all happening this month to celebrate Claude, the albino alligator at the California Academy of Sciences, who is turning 30.
Claude’s “hatch day” was September 15, 1995. He was born on an alligator farm in Louisiana and was originally about the size of a banana as a baby (cute!) Claude’s lack of melanin and poor eyesight means he can’t survive in the wild, and he was stationed for the first 13 years of his life at St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. Then, a ‘gator wrangler transported Claude and a huge Eastern diamondback rattlesnake in the bed of his pickup truck to the Academy of Sciences (now that’s a buddy road movie we’d all like to see!)
Even when it’s not his birthday, Claude receives fan letters, poems, art—and once, a $5 bill. But with delectable frozen rats and fish delivered straight to his maw, a swamp to live in along with three snapping turtle pals (Donatello, Raphael, and Morla, which you may recognize as names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Claude has no need of lucre.
Maybe it is his simple approach to life that inspires so much affection for the cold-blooded reptile, whose scaly skin is sometimes covered in green algae. One of his caretakers, marine biologist Emma Kocina, says her charge is quite beloved, particularly by a certain age range.
“He’s different, and that’s what makes him special. For some reason, a lot of his fans are under three feet tall—which is crazy to me, because he could be this big, scary alligator,” she said. “They know his name. A lot of members come in and the first thing they do is say good morning to him.”
Kocina has been at the California Academy of Sciences for eight years, six of those on the “swamp team,” and the last three of those as the lead. She and the others work on training Claude and getting him to follow verbal cues. He knows his name and simple commands: “Claude, home,” means for the alligator to go to the spot where he gets fed.
Only sometimes, he doesn’t want to. And that’s OK, Kocina says.
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“When I started as his lead, we started doing more choice,” she said. “So on mornings that we feed him, if he is laid out on the rock, we’ll come up. We bring the food with us. We’ll start calling him, and if he is motivated and he wants to, he would get up and get in the water, but a lot of times he just lays there, and then we’re like, ‘OK, today he’s chosen that he doesn’t want to eat.’”
Sometimes when you’re a 10-foot, 300-pound animal, you make the rules.
When she first started working as Claude’s caretaker, Kocina was a little daunted by his size—but that quickly changed.
“The more I worked with him, I saw how intelligent he is, and it’s really interesting to see how he does interact with us,” Kocina said. “It’s been really nice to watch him develop. He’s not aggressive at all. Sometimes he’s not a great listener, but I’ve never had any problems with him.”
CLAUDE’S HATCH DAY CELEBRATION run through September 30. California Academy of Sciences, SF. Tickets and more info here.
