Blimey, He Was A Beaut

Jack’s Jock Pays His Respects
to the Crocodile Hunter

I remember quite well the first time I saw Steve Irwin on television. One evening following dinner I was in the basement of my fraternity house watching television with a few of my brothers and having a cold one. Someone stopped on The Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. And on the screen was this crazy Australian precariously dangling a snake in front of himself and talking to the camera. I mean… he wasn’t even looking at the snake the whole time he was talking!

So admittedly, the shock value makes you watch the first few times. After all, the man is crazy. Right? With a nickname like the Crocodile Hunter, he’d have to be crazy.

No – he was not crazy. He was masterful. He was an educator, an entertainer, and a steward to Mother Earth. He genuinely cared for the creatures he encountered on a day-to-day basis. He fought for their protection, and he laid his life on the line to learn more about them so that we could make the world a better place. I watched episodes of his shows where he spent hours rescuing animals from certain death. His fight for the good of God’s creatures was relentless. They called him a Wildlife Warrior.

He brought the issue of wildlife conservation into living rooms across the globe. He did it with his own outspoken methods, with a big grin on his face and a swagger in his step. So, in many ways he was a pioneer.

In the past, nature shows were always characterized by a camera crew filming the animals from a long distance. Meanwhile, a boring BBCesque voice would quietly narrate the action as if this were commentary for a golf tourney or tennis match—detached, no interaction with the audience. “The cheetah gets its prey as the graceful gazelle goes down. The cycle of life on the savannah.” Yawn.

These things couldn’t be further from the Crocodile Hunter’s style. He would wrestle crocs to the ground, pull a snake out of its hole, or get in the water with sharks. But his antics had purpose. He knew that to get people interested in what he was doing, he had to be a bit outlandish. Show some bravado. But after the shock of watching an educated, fully-grown man dodge strikes of a venomous serpent, you suddenly began listening to what he was saying.

He would tell you how farmers in the Australian brush ruthlessly kill these animals. Or how pollutants are ruining their habitat. Or how deforestation is driving the species out of its home. He would speak of the animals and how their specific traits tailored to their ecosystem are indeed a thing to behold. He would speak of a crocodile’s lurking ability and ferocious bite with extreme respect. With awe, really. This man knew that the abilities and tenacity of animals in the wild are truly awesome. A lizard’s camouflage, a sea turtle laying its eggs, a pack of dingoes stalking their prey, and even a stingray’s ability to protect itself when it felt threatened are all extraordinary things.

I was very sad to learn on Monday, September 4th, that Steve Irwin had died. While swimming above a stingray, he accidentally boxed it in. Threatened, the stingray fatally drove its poisonous barb into Irwin’s chest. It was a terrible loss from a tragic accident. Steve was a devoted family man with a wife and two young children. His wife once said, “The only thing that could ever keep him away from the animals he loves are the people he loves even more.” The son of wildlife experts, Irwin grew up around crocodiles and other reptiles at the family’s small Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park (later renamed the Australia Zoo). He learned about wildlife conservation from his father and wrestled his first croc at the age of 9, under his father’s supervision. Conservation was more than a job to Steve Irwin—it was a way of life.

Irwin’s untimely passing has set him up for an unfortunate comparison to Timothy Treadwell, the “Grizzly Man.” Although both men were victims of the wild, the similarities end there. Treadwell was an amateur, a failed actor and recovering addict who found comfort in the wild. Perhaps through some misguided need for companionship, he tried to foster personal relationships with the animals of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. He did not approach them as a scientist or ecologist, but as a friend. For thirteen years he summered, unarmed, among the brown bears, cooing “I love you” and swimming alongside them. Ultimately, he was devoured by a bear he considered his brother and refused to respect as a wild animal. In contrast, Irwin’s bravado belied an extensive ecological, wildlife training. He was a professional first and foremost, an actor and media personality second. He understood the risks and he took precautions. Unlike Treadwell, whose eventual demise surprised few, Irwin was felled by an accident for which he could never have prepared.

His memory will live through the work of his family and colleagues at the Australia Zoo.

I’ll remember him in my own way. Today, I just so happened to come across The Crocodile Hunter on television. During a commercial I went to the kitchen and fetched a beer from the fridge. As the show rolled on, as shows do, I had a few quiet thoughts and lifted a cold one to the passing of a great. The passing of a Wildlife Warrior… the passing of The Crocodile Hunter.