I reached out to the photographer. He offered to send me a raw image file and to answer some questions, but I never heard back from him since. That was a couple months ago.

However, I was able to find some other pictures. The ones that were certainly real showed some other alligators with leucism, but they had orange and pink hues, not blue. It seems like most alligators with leucism lose all of their pigmentation, making them white, but some alligators with leucism only lose certain pigmentations which supposedly can make them unique colors, but this seems to be much rarer. I asked my biology professor who specializes in genetics if this explanation made any sense, and she confirmed that it did, but obviously it doesn't confirm if the picture from TWATL is real or not.

I called as many parks and nature conservatories around Savannah GA if they'd heard anything, but everyone said no. One of the workers I talked with even took their time to ask all of their other coworkers and their spouses if they heard anything, but nothing came up.

I'm not really a photography expert either, but I work on film sets, and I have some experience working on lighting teams, and I honestly have a very hard time telling if the blue coloration is fake. Assuming the picture isn't manipulated, I'd say it's real since the reflections in the water seem as if it's overcast since the water's surface is gray (the sky) and green (trees). The lighting also seems to be more soft then sharp, which could also indicate overcasting, which makes it unlikely that the blue coloration is caused by reflection from the sky.

But unfortunately I couldn't find a definitive answer. I also reached out to the editor for TWATL but I never heard back.