Seven albino alligators were stolen from the only zoo run by the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) in Brazil as last year came to a close.

Biologist Itamar Assumpcao, who is in charge of the administration of the zoo, told the media during the first week of 2008 that the alligators were last seen on December 31, 2007.

The federal police are investigating whether any staff member was involved in the theft. The alligators are suspected to be stolen for trade abroad. The total value of the animals, approximately two years old, was estimated to be 119,000 reais (68,000 U.S. dollars) in the illegal market.

The theft left the UFMT zoo with only one alligator that is 100 % albino, and 43 others that have smaller percentages of albinism in their genetic constitutions.

The albino alligators, born in 2005, are the result of 10 years of inbreeding that began shortly after a breeder sent the zoo a male and female alligator that were much lighter than their normal dark green color.

The UFMT zoo hosts 800 animals of 79 species in an area of 11 hectares.

Albino alligators are found in the midwestern states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as the northeastern states of Maranhao and Piaui. More than 50 endangered species find their habitat in Mato Grosso.

Two other reportedly albino alligators are currently at the Sao Paulo Aquarium in Brazil.

In the United States, white alligators are mostly famously located at the The Audubon Zoo in New Orleans (part of the Audubon Nature Institute). They were placed on exhibition when in 1987 an alligator nest was discovered with 18 freshly hatched alligators with white hides, due to a mutation termed leucism (they are not albino).

The Audubon Zoo’s “Swamp Exhibit” houses the leucistic alligators, which during the time I visited before Katrina, also contained a taller-than-human-sized model of the “Honey Island Swamp Monster.”

White (leucistic) alligators have been loaned to other zoos from the Audubon Zoo, for example, to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, the San Francisco Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, Bridgeport, CT’s Beardsley Zoo, the Knoxville Zoo, and others.

Omaha, Nebraska’s Henry Doorly Zoo in November 2006 placed on exhibition a white (leucistic) alligator, a 19-year old, 8-foot long, 180 pound male, as a new attraction. Considering it was 19 years old, that would make it one of the 1987 batch from the Audubon Zoo.

The Columbia, South Carolina’s Riverbanks Zoo also exhibits one white alligator. Riverbanks got their rare gator after SC’s Natural Resources Department agents seized three of the animals when three men were arrested in 2003 for taking the endangered species from the banks of a pond on Hilton Head Island. The other two gators died from an infection suffered before they were taken to the zoo.

Albino and white alligators remain rare in exhibitions, and a big draw for zoological park visitors.

White and albino animals of any species are hot exhibition items, as was discovered during the 1960s and 1970s with the explosion of white tiger exhibitions around the world. Mohan, the father of the white tigers of Rewa, was captured as a cub in 1951, and one of his offspring was presented to President Eisenhower in 1960. Tony, born in July of 1972 in the Circus Winter Quarters of the Cole Bros. Circus in Peru, Indiana, was the founder of many American white tiger lines, especially those used in circuses. The two lines crossed and crisscrossed in America. For example, over 70 white tigers were born at the Cincinnati Zoo, which is no longer in the white tiger business. Siegfried & Roy bought a litter of three white cubs from the Cincinnati Zoo. Today, white tiger breeding has diminished, but the animals remain publicly popular.

White moose are rarely seen and shown, and yet may relate to the cryptid phantom “ghost moose” accounts discussed here before.

White bison have sacred meanings and ponderings on them are more suited for another day.

Are zoo whites still hot or not? Certainly, these Brazilian albino alligators are now, unfortunately.

Source: Xinhua, January 3, 2008, other wire reports, various reference works, and personal observations.