California Academy of Sciences

This guide to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco follows Claude, an albino alligator hatched in Louisiana in 1995, whose lack of pigment made survival in the wild nearly impossible. You'll hear how a Florida alligator farm raised him for thirteen years before the Academy brought him to Golden Gate Park in 2008, the same year Renzo Piano's rebuilt building reopened after earthquake damage. Listen for how Claude grew into a ten-foot local celebrity, trained to answer to his own name, beloved by the staff who fed him for seventeen years.