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, made the memorial one of its kind.
The reptile 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.
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. Claude was a gentle giant who inspired many, reminding everyone that differences should be celebrated.
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, made the memorial one of its kind.
The reptile 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.
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. Claude was a gentle giant who inspired many, reminding everyone that differences should be celebrated.
