Thousands in San Francisco mourn beloved albino alligator, Claude

Claude wasn’t much of a talker, he barely moved, and never wore a costume to entice his audience – but on Sunday, hundreds gathered in San Francisco to celebrate the life and legacy of the city’s beloved albino alligator.

A New Orleans-style brass band, a gator-shaped eight-foot-long white sourdough bread, drag queen story time and even a street officially bearing his name, Claude the Alligator Way, the memorial was one of its kind.

The reptile sure won millions of hearts when he was alive, but he was also remembered for stealing from a 12-year-old girl.

The 10-foot-long, 300-pound white alligator with pink eyes and poor eyesight once stole – and then gobbled- the girl’s ballet shoe, recalled Bart Shepherd of the California Academy of Sciences, Claude’s home for 17 years before his death in December.

“It’s no small feat to get a shoe out of an alligator,” Shepherd told a crowd of Claude’s fans in Golden Gate Park.

It took a lot of anaesthesia, specialised tools, and multiple vets and staff members to extract the shoe from inside Claude – a task that was completed successfully, despite a fire alarm going off throughout the building at the time, Shepherd said.

“It was really heartening to see San Francisco come out to celebrate this beloved San Francisco icon,” Jeanette Peach, the communications director at the academy, told the BBC.

Part of why people loved Claude so much, Peach said, was that he “embodied something that we think of as a really San Francisco ideal, which is not just accepting but welcoming people for their differences”.

Claude’s albinism, which is extremely rare in alligators, provided visibility for people who feel a little outcast, Peach said.

“Here is this wonderful animal who is a little outcast from how the rest of his species is, but who is beloved and treasured and has value,” she added.

Claude “delighted and captivated more than 22 million visitors and showed us the power of ambassador animals to connect people with nature and science”, the academy wrote on its website.

The reptile, who died from liver cancer at the age of 30 in December, hatched in 1995 at an alligator farm in Louisiana before coming to live at the academy’s swamp exhibit in 2008.

Since his passing, the academy has received thousands of letters from Claude’s fans, writing to say how much the alligator meant to them.

“Thank you for inspiring so many young children over the years,” one of Claude’s visitors wrote in a note to him. “You reminded us that our differences are what make us unique and special and that they are something to be celebrated.”

“You will forever be in my heart,” another wrote. “I will miss you so much and thank you for being a part of my childhood.”

Lana Krol, a senior veterinarian at the academy, said that out of all the alligators she’s worked with, Claude “struck me as the most laidback of them all”.

“I can say with confidence that I won’t meet another gator like Claude in my lifetime. I’ll miss him terribly,” Krol said.