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SF Might Name an SF Street After Claude the Albino Alligator, and You Can Help Pick Which Street

Joe Kukura — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 23:55:00 GMT

The late albino alligator Claude now has a City Hall effort afoot to name a street in Golden Gate Park after him, and there's a public poll to help decide which street will become “Claude the Albino Alligator Way.”

As we publish this post on Tuesday afternoon, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is currently holding its final meeting of 2025. And you may want to tune in on SFGovTV and wait for agenda item Number 40, “Roll Call for Introductions.” That’s because, as Mission Local reports, that item will have Supervisor Myrna Melgar introducing a resolution to name a street on Golden Gate Park after Claude the Albino Alligator, the California Academy of Sciences’s 30-year-old distinctive albino gator who died two weeks ago today from liver cancer.

“Claude was an icon of a public figure. That’s why we need a public process to decide how to honor him,” Melgar told Mission Local before Tuesday’s board meeting. “This process will give the public direct influence over how we as a city commemorate his legacy and keep him in our hearts.”

Image: Google Maps

If Melgar’s resolution passes, the street called “Claude the Albino Alligator Way” would be one of the streets right by Claude’s former home at the California Academy of Sciences. Each of these streets is seen on the map above, and they’re described below:

The block of 8th Avenue between Fulton Street and JFK Promenade
The block of 10th Avenue between Fulton Street and JFK Promenade (seen above with the words “Music Concourse Underground Garage”)
The two blocks of Bowl Drive between Music Concourse Drive and Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Music Concourse Drive between JFK Drive and MLK Jr Drive
The unnamed street between Music Concourse Drive and Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive (parallel to MLK Jr Drive)

Mission Local is running a poll to choose which of these streets would become Claude the Albino Alligator Way. You can vote in that poll here.

Though as Mission Local adds, “Melgar’s office will officially send the results to the Recreation and Parks commission, which will ultimately decide which street receives the new name.” So Rec and Parks is going to choose the street, and the results of the readers’ poll may not matter at all.

You can vote in that Mission Local poll through December 31. But realize that the Board of Supervisors will be on their holiday recess until Monday, January 5 once they wrap up this afternoon’s meeting. So this legislation to name a street Claude the Albino Alligator Way will be getting off to a very slow-moving start.

Image: California Academy of Sciences via Facebook

SF’s Own Albino Alligator Claude Is Turning 30 Years Old, Celebrations Are Scaling Up

Joe Kukura — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 21:48:30 GMT

The California Academy of Sciences is chomping at the bit to throw multiple parties for Claude the albino alligator’s 30th birthday, lining up celebrity chefs, cocktail parties, and cakes made of fish guts

The famed albino alligator Claude was hatched 30 years ago, and not at his current home in a synthetic moat at the California Academy of Sciences, but in the swamplands of Florida. He was taken in by an alligator rescue, because his albino condition and poor eyesight meant he would surely not last long in the wild. He came to the Academy of Sciences in 2008, originally homed with a non-albino female alligator named Bonnie. But she bit off one of Claude’s fingers (I suppose you could say she was the insti-gator), and the two were separated.

Now one of the top solo attractions at the Academy of Sciences, Claude will be celebrating his 30th birthday (technically, his 30th “hatch day”) on September 15. But the Academy of Sciences has a whole month of 30th birthday activities lined up for Claude, with classy cocktail parties, a meal from a Top Chef: All-Stars winner, and many opportunities to win Claude plushies.