{"id":106403,"date":"2025-12-23T14:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/106403\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T14:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:13:13","slug":"what-claude-taught-his-keeper-and-everyone-else-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/106403\/","title":{"rendered":"What Claude taught his keeper \u2014 and everyone else in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">The death of Claude, the beloved albino alligator at the California Academy of Sciences, was one of the biggest news events of the year in San Francisco. Claude, who turned 30 in November, <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2025\/12\/02\/beloved-albino-alligator-claude-dies-30-california-academy-sciences\/\" data-post-id=\"b8c50ed5-e2a5-47e3-802c-e375dd772141\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died in early December<\/a> from late-stage liver cancer. Since then, the city (and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/californias-beloved-albino-alligator-claude-dies-at-30\/a-74999263\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">the world (opens in new tab)<\/a>) has been in mourning: The academy has been flooded with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calacademy.org\/in-memory-of-claude\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">goodbye letters (opens in new tab)<\/a>, and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar <a href=\"https:\/\/missionlocal.org\/2025\/12\/sf-claude-albino-alligator-street-name-poll\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">wants to rename a street (opens in new tab)<\/a> in the reptile\u2019s honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">Claude was seen by many as an ambassador of San Francisco\u2019s quirkiness and independent spirit. For those who grew up alongside him, he was a steady, constant companion amid the backdrop of a rapidly changing city. For others, he was the mascot for the vast animal kingdom housed at the California Academy of Sciences.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A woman with long brown hair wearing a black California Academy of Sciences shirt stands indoors near a curved wooden railing with a calm expression.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"block lazyloaded\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 3000 2000'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766499192_858_-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/>For Emma Kocina, Claude\u2019s keeper and a senior biologist at the academy, he was a daily companion. | Source: Morgan Ellis \/ The Standard<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">For Emma Kocina, Claude\u2019s keeper and a senior biologist at the academy, he was a daily companion. She spent eight years feeding, training, and caring for the delicate animal. Kocina says she\u2019s still trying to understand why Claude captured so many hearts, but she feels the weight of his loss for herself and all San Franciscans. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pressure to care for an animal that\u2019s so loved by not only the academy, but the city,\u201d she told us. \u201cI have a hard time separating myself out from the thousands of people that are distraught over it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">In an end-of-year bonus episode of \u201cPacific Standard Time,\u201d we talk to Kocina about what Claude taught her \u2014 and all of us \u2014\u00a0 in his 17 years perched on a heated rock in California Academy of Science\u2019s artificial swamp.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Handmade cards with drawings of crocodiles and messages like \u201cYou will be missed\u201d and \u201cClaude\u201d are spread on a black tablecloth, with a hand reaching over.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2001\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"block lazyloaded\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 3000 2001'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766499193_286_-S3840x2561-FPNG.png\"\/>Source: Morgan Ellis \/ The Standard<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-block article-body undefined text-left\">\ud83c\udfa7 Listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts<br \/>\u2709\ufe0f Message the team: <a href=\"http:\/\/sfstandard.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#7e2e2d2a3e0d180d0a1f101a1f0c1a501d1113\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of Claude, the beloved albino alligator at the California Academy of Sciences, was one of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2113,45378,101,103,102,104,106,105,7662],"class_list":["post-106403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-animals","tag-california-academy-of-sciences","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}