COURIER-JOURNAL (Lousiville, Kentucky) 11 March 05 Rare gator checks in - Albino King Louis will add sparkle as a permanent exhibit at the zoo (Sheldon S. Shafer)
A rare white alligator called King Louis will go on permanent exhibit this morning in the Louisville Zoo's HerpAquarium.
"We hope he becomes the city's mascot," said Bill McMahan, the zoo's curator of ectotherms, who pinned the moniker on the new arrival in honor of his new hometown's namesake.
The 8-year-old albino gator is 6 feet long and weighs about 50 pounds, with a shiny white hide and pinkish eyes that result from a genetic mutation and lack of pigment. He was brought to the zoo by van last week from an alligator farm in St. Augustine, Fla., zoo director John Walczak said.
He said zoo officials have been considering adding an albino alligator to the permanent collection since 1998, when a then-7-year-old albino gator named Hal, on loan from a South Carolina farm, was exhibited temporarily at the zoo.
Zoo officials credited Hal with helping boost attendance 10 percent that year; Walczak said there often were lines to see him.
There are 67 known white alligators in captivity, nearly all of them in the United States, according to zoo officials. Rare to start with, they almost never live long in the wild because their uncamouflaged skin marks them as easy targets for predators when young.
Two 3-year-old albino alligators, of yet indeterminate sex, accompanied King Louis to the zoo last week and likely will stay until late July. They came from the same egg batch, McMahan said, and are probably young siblings of Louis; McMahan named the smaller gators -- about 31 inches long and 3 pounds each -- Itty and Bitty.
The young gators are more susceptible to sunburn, skin cancer and cataracts, McMahan said, so they will not be put on permanent exhibit.
Instead, they will be brought out for promotion and educational purposes and for up-close encounters with kids, he said, adding, "We want to take good care of these guys."
King Louis, who will have a rainforest-style exhibit specially developed for him at the HerpAquarium, will be kept separate from the zoo's eight Cuban crocodiles in the Islands pavilion.
Alligators eat "any living creature that swims, flies, creeps or crawls that comes within the reach of their jaws," McMahan said.
Their zoo diet will be heavy on rats and mice; Louis may get a horse-meat supplement.
Male alligators can live more than 70 years in captivity and reach 19 feet in length, nearly twice the size of females.
Albino King Louis will add sparkle as a permanent exhibit at the zoo