Here’s the CNN link. I feel so sorry for his family, especially his daughter; you could tell she really looked up to and idolized him.
No way :(.
I’m still hoping this is a hoax.
Upon further reading, it looks like all anyone knows is 1. Someone was killed by a stingray and 2. Steve Irwin was filming a documentary in the same area.
Are reports of his death perhaps immature?
Nevermind. The Age is saying it’s confirmed.
RIP Mr. Irwin 
Since I was so surprised by the circumstances of the death, I went looking around the web. I found this article which may shed some light on stingray attacks:
http://www.potamotrygon.de/fremdes/stingray%20article.htm
Thankyou for the link - whilst I appreciate CNN is a reliable news source, I was looking for more Oz news sites to verify the story and convince me of Irwin’s death. The (Oz) tabloid-y site I’m referring to is the Australian new site, news.com.au. I’ve since checked other (more reputable) news sites and they all seem to confirm it. All the radio news broadcasts are stating the same thing, including soundbytes from paramedics who worked on him and fellow colleagues who were working with him at the time.
Yes, it does seem real.
:smack:
that’s “Australian news site, news.com.au”…
I just knocked off work and read the news on the ABC website, and saw it confirmed on Wikipedia and News.com.au
Very sad indeed… I feel sorry for his family, who one can only hope are taking a small measure of consolation knowing that he died doing what he loved.
Wow, this is huge, from a contemporary culture standpoint. I mean, there are so freaking many cultural references to this guys’ work, plus the real environmental work he was doing, that his sudden death just rocks the world. Folks will be shaking their heads over thsi one for a long time.
I read the links from all of the posts so far, and it looks like (1) yeah, Steve’s really dead and (2) yeah, it really was what the Sidney Telegraph calls a “freak” accident. I mean, this guy really was a college-trained biologist/zoologist. He knew his shit. He knew that getting close to the dorsal spine of a sting ray could be dangerous. But here’s what I think happened: I think that, because he knew this for so long, he became complacent in his own knowledge, got careless, depended on reflexes to keep him the correct distance from the fish and BLAP, the sting ray got 'im. It could happen to any vacationing diver; it just happened to happen to Steve Irwin.
The real tragedy is that, for all the laughs people played this guy for, he was a serious environmentalist who did good work. We are richer for having known him and poorer for having lost him.l
Even though I am an Aussie, I first heard about the phenomenon that was Steve Irwin here on the SDMB actually!!..seems he was much more popular o/s (especially in the US) than he was here originally. Since then though, although he grated on me somewhat for his ‘showmanship’, I felt he was basically a good bloke who knew his stuff and cared passionately about conservation and ecological issues.
Vale Steve.
Great post, Sunrazor. I’m already annoyed that so many people are going to make a joke of this, and tons of people are already saying the equivolent of “I told you so,” or, “I saw it coming.”
No, moron, if YOU were handling wild animals we would’ve seen it coming. Steve was world-class in his skillset. This was a freak accident, not any kind of comeuppance or overdue eventuality.
I was just thinking that his last words, and probably even his death, are almost certainly on film. I’ve seen him get bitten by dangerous animals before and they keep the film rolling. I don’t see any reason why they would have done differently this time.
The thought sends shivers down my spine.
My 11 year old boy, who wants desperately to be a “snake scientist” when he grows up due to watching Steve Irwin since about birth, is really upset.
We went to Steve’s zoo (Australia Zoo) two years ago and had a blast. He wasn’t there the day we went but the place is lovely. We also got to see Harriet the tortise, who died recently, the Sumatran tigers out for a walk (Sumatran kittens then) and all sorts of stuff.
Sad news for me (in that, wow, I kinda liked that guy) but my son is really sad. The first thing my son said when we moved to Australia from the US is that now he could study snakes and go to Australia Zoo.
Cheers,
G
Just because he was skilled, and a professional, doesn’t mean that people are incorrect in saying that they saw it coming. The fact of the matter is that what he was doing was incredibly dangerous (not only the sting ray thing, but his interactions with all poisonous/dangerous animals). The thing about any dangerous activity is that even with all of the preparation and training in the world, there’s still a significant likelihood that something will go wrong. That’s why those acts are “dangerous” and not “slightly risky”.
Very sad.
Millions of people tomorrow are going to be debasing the man’s entire life and brushing aside all the progress he made to take their stab at a tired old joke that was tired and old when Roy Horn got attacked years ago.
“The Crocodile Hunter died in a wild animal accident? Never saw that comin’! YUK YUK YUK!!!”
It would be slightly less offensive if it were at least funny.
Sad indeed.
“I knew it’d happen” “What a surprise” and “I told you so” aren’t funny, you’re right. But just because someone says that they knew it’d happen doesn’t mean that they’re yukking it up. It means that they aren’t surprised to see that his dangerous behaviour finally caught up to him.
The one good thing out of all of this is that people will also see that even though Steve was a highly trained professional who did this for his whole life, things can and will still go wrong. He’s enough of a celebrity that his shows will keep airing, his message will keep going out. His work will continue being done at the Australia Zoo. But there’s an additional message there now too. Steve was a professional, he still made a mistake that cost him his life. Nobody’s invincible, even if they are the most highly trained person in their field. And hopefully people will remember that too - the animals he worked with are dangerous and potentially deadly, no matter who you are.
It’s synonymous with ‘Fox News can reveal that…’ 
Very sad. He always made it clear that these were dangerous animals, always respected them. Just one error was all it was going to take.
I clicked on this thread just as we were all going to bed, and I called my daughter back out because I did not want her to hear about this on the television. She has been a huge fan of Irwin’s since she was nine-ish, she wrote him a letter when she was in the fourth grade and received a bunch of stuff in return from the Australian Zoo. For years she had the ambition to move to Australia and work at the zoo with the Irwins and the rest of the zoo crew. She can still name every croc, as well as the other animals in the zoo. As a family we cried when Sui died, rejoiced over Bindi’s birth, and that of Bob’s. We mourned when his mother passed, and when the croc Mary died. He was bigger than life, and he taught my daughter so much about empathy and to try to understand and have compassion for even the least lovable creatures.
So tonight we have had a good cry, and remembered the man. We mourn for his family, the wife who left hearth and home to follow her love, their children who adored him, the people who worked so closely with him, and the many people whose lives he touched. Steve-o, you taught us, you made us laugh, you showed us that death is an every day reality and that life can be harsh. You went out full throttle, but far too soon. Farewell, mate.