What Claude taught his keeper — and everyone else in San Francisco, too

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, died in early December from late-stage liver cancer. Since then, the city (and the world) has been in mourning: The academy has been flooded with goodbye letters, and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar wants to rename a street in the reptile’s honor. 

Claude was seen by many as an ambassador of San Francisco’s 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. 

For Emma Kocina, Claude’s keeper and a senior biologist at the academy, Claude was a daily companion. She spent eight years feeding, training, and caring for the delicate animal. Kocina says she’s still trying to understand why Claude captured so many hearts, but she feels the weight of his loss for herself and all San Franciscans. “It's a lot of pressure to care for an animal that's so loved by not only the academy, but the city,” she told Pacific Standard Time. “I have a hard time separating myself out from the thousands of people that are distraught over it.” 

In an end-of-year bonus episode of “Pacific Standard Time,” we talk to Kocina about what Claude taught her — and all of us —  in his 17 years perched on a heated rock in California Academy of Science’s artificial swamp.

For more information on this week’s episode, visit ⁠⁠sfstandard.com/pacific-standard-time⁠⁠. Transcripts of each episode are available on our website. 

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