EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
The San Francisco Bay Area lost a beloved resident earlier this week - Claude, an albino alligator that lived at the California Academy of Sciences. He died at the age of 30. Among the people who said their final goodbyes to an old friend is Bart Shepherd, senior director of the Steinhart Aquarium.
BART SHEPHERD: He'd lived with us for 17 years and really captivated tens of millions of people during that time.
PERALTA: Captivated millions because of his unique ghostly looks.
SHEPHERD: Claude was completely white. He was a full albino. He had pink eyes and just really was a remarkable-looking creature.
PERALTA: Claude got his looks from a genetic mutation that made his skin lack melanin. He came to San Francisco from an alligator farm in Florida. Shepherd says albino alligators are extremely rare and almost never survive in the wild. That's because the same thing that made Claude so stunning to look at would make him vulnerable in his native swamps.
SHEPHERD: I doubt you would ever see an albino alligator in the wild. The vast majority of them would die as a young hatchling because they're bright white and they would stand out, and predators could get them quite quickly.
PERALTA: Claude also risked getting sunburned in the wild. Seriously. To get warm, alligators like to lounge in the sun. And, well, for a white alligator, that could be painful. So instead, Claude relaxed at the Steinhart Aquarium, where he became beloved by visitors from all over the world.
SHEPHERD: A lot of people didn't think he was real. It was really fascinating to me. And he's just, you know, sort of became a - an icon for us, you know, a sort of mascot for us and a - and really a cultural fixture in San Francisco, for sure.
PERALTA: Claude was the subject of two children's books and featured regularly in the advertising promoting the aquarium in the city of San Francisco. But Shepherd says Claude's greatest impact was the wonder he inspired in visitors, helping people marvel at the biodiversity all around them.
SHEPHERD: People just really connected with him. I think, you know, there - it sparks this sort of innate curiosity about the natural world, and whether you were a schoolkid visiting here on a field trip or whether you were an older person who had been coming here for, you know, decades.
PERALTA: Claude had just turned 30 in September. The museum and the city celebrated him for the entire month. There were scavenger hunts, art installations where students could display their portraits of Claude and, of course...
SHEPHERD: A special birthday cake that the animal care staff made out of fish and ice. And he swam over and chomped that a couple of times, to, you know, the great delight of the hundreds of people that were crowded around the top of the habitat.
PERALTA: Claude died on Tuesday. He had extensive liver cancer. Here's to an afterlife full of fish and ice cakes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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