In the video I saw, a gate was open near the pond, and very close to Steve Irwin.
That said, whether or not is was safe, it sure LOOKED foolhardy.
Imagine if he would have had a brain fart and thrown the baby to the croc instead of the chicken. The croc may have become finicky and only wanted human babies from then on. Not like any of this had a remote chance of happening.
Next month he’ll have the kid in Africa with a Cobra spitting venom in its face. You can never teach a two month old enough about the dangers of corbras spiting venom at you.
[hijack]
The Australia Zoo is truly a suckful place. Any tourists that come to this country would be well advised to skip it. Or if you must go, only bank a couple of hours. It’s friggin’ tiny!
That baby is about the size of a large chicken.
One SNAP!—bye-bye baby.
His career is toast.
This was obviously a very stupid thing to do. Crocodiles and babies: two things we try very hard to keep as far apart as possible.
That said, I’m not sure I buy all “But he knows what he’s doing!” arguments. From what I’ve seen on tv, the guy does seem to know his shit about large reptiles. However, this does not mean bringing a baby into a crocodile enclosure is acceptable or safe. He may know all there is to know about crocodile physiology and behavior, and he may be very experienced in handling them, but that doesn’t change the fact that a crocodile is a living thing; it can behave in unpredictable ways. Had something gone wrong, had that croc attacked, he may have been able to handle the situation and get the baby safely away from it. But then again he might not. So why take the risk? For what possible purpose?
He and his wife seemed to answer this: “We want to teach the baby about the dangers of crocodiles”. Okay. Let’s analyze this. Many people have already pointed out that it’s impossible to teach a one-month-old baby anything. The brain of such a young child simply has not developed enough yet to make these sorts of connections. So this is a ridiculous reason from them.
Secondly, there are plenty of much safer ways to teach children about the dangers of crocodiles. Even without specific instruction, most kids just absorb that some animals are dangerous and you should stay away from them.
My personal take on this is that Steve Irwin is looking for more publicity. I used to watch the show for the “Holy shit, look what that guy is doing!” thrill, and it’s obvious he cares very much about animals and wants to help them in some vague way. Great. I aprove. But the more I see this guy, the more I realize he is a major grandstander who really seems to get off on the media perception of him as some kind of croc-wrasslin’ Outback cowboy. Everything he does seems calculated to foster this image and bring him more attention.
His wife is scary. She strikes me as one of those people who’s crazy obsessed with their spouse/SO and will go along with any hare-brained scheme they come up with. I don’t know too many new mothers who would not immediately reduce to bloody pulp anyone who even thought about endangering their baby in the slightest.
From the news.com.au article
This is stupid. If Steve keeps them out of the way, that kid ain’t going to encounter any crocodiles on the Gold Coast. Kids don’t need to learn crococile-safety like it’s straight after “look both ways before you cross the road” in the how-to guide of the modern world. It really makes me wonder how I survived 20 years in Australia without ever being dangled in front of a crocodile.
Are you an idiot? Comparing a crocodile to a dog is like comparing a shark to a goldfish.
Steve Irwin’s always struck me as a little bit thick but I recently lost all possible respect for the man when he declared John Howard to be the greatest PM Australia’s ever had. This beats even that unbelieveable comment.
I’m pretty sure the first rule of parental safety around crocs is ‘keep your kids the fuck away’. Irwin, of all people, should know that.
In the words on one of my clients: He want’s shootin’, he does.
1st of all … WHY IS BOB WEARING PINK?
2nd of all … First thing I thought of was Michael Jackson. Somehow, I don’t think he’s gonna get the same flack as MJ did; but I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t think of that flopping stunt before he pulled this one.
Lastly … I don’t think anyone here is in a place to judge if it was dangerous, more than Steve Irwin. The whole thing that makes him so popular is what he does that seems dangerous to us, but he gets away with and is knowledgeable about.
Just my 3¢.
Good point.
Even if we assume that one-month-olds could assimilate lessons, which is Bob more likely to learn from this episode?
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Crocodiles are dangerous animals that should be treated with care and respect; or
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Crocodiles are fun things to play with, like Daddy does.
Whatta moron.
Steve is lucky he isn’t my husband because he’d be wishing he was back in the pen with the crocodile after I got ahold of him.
Of course, I could never be married to someone like Steve Irwin. He makes money by taking unnecessary risks. His wife was well aware of it and has supported him. Steve was raised at the zoo and learned to be very comfortable (carelessly so, perhaps) around reptiles. Terri chose to have children with him, knowing full well that they’d be similarly exposed to crocs and snakes their whole life. (Anyone watch the Rosie O’Donnell show where Rosie got extremely upset at Steve for bringing Bindi out all wrapped in a huge snake?) Even though I would never allow my children to be exposed to such danger, this isn’t my deal. It’s theirs. And whether I like it or not, the zoo is the family business and the kids need to learn how to handle themselves around reptiles.
Sounds like you didn’t see the entire video, cos what I saw was as well as that clip, him holding the baby by his upper-arms with his feet on the ground and wiggling him around in a “pretend run” towards the water. The croc in this shot was to the left and slightly behind Steve. If nothing else, should a 1-month old not still be having his head supported?
The guy is striking me as an immense dork for this. We have seen him be bitten occasionally on his show, now while it is possible that he deliberatly lets himself be bitten occasionally for the cameras to make it all seem more dangerous, I think it is more likely that he occasionally missjudges a situation or simply makes a mistake. That’s ok, we are all human, it happens no matter how good we are at what we do. With this in mind, we generally try to avoid putting tiny babys in situations where something could go wrong. It is not even comparable to daddy throwing a small kid up in the air and catching them as that is at least being done in part ofr the kids entertainment. This was for the entertainment of (paying) strangers. Not a good call.
No matter what anyone says, this was a dangerous and unnecessary thing to do.
Steve might have been controlling the situation, but such things are unpredictable.
What if the baby slipped out of his arms and attacked the crocodile? An adult crocodile has no idea how to handle 1-month old baby. It has no expirience with babies.
It could’ve become scared, it could’ve been left with emotional (as well as physical trauma), it could’ve sustained a serious and permanent injury, had the baby decided to do anything stupid.
Our crocodiles deserve better, as simple as that.
That was funny. Good work.
You know, I’ve only seen pics, and seeing pics of him just holding the baby in the enclosure, I was about to say that people were overreacting and he knows what he’s doing.
But I just saw the video of him ‘walking’ the kid across the floor…that’s fucking stupid. Idiot.
Ava
I’ll say it again: Having the baby in one arm and croc food in the other is intolerable stupidity. The croc is looking at the baby and thinking “I bet that tastes like chicken.”
Seeing isn’t always believing. At least it shouldn’t be. As you can see in the series of photos near the bottom of this page, telephoto lenses appear to compress the perspective, making objects which are, in reality, far from each other appear to be close together. I don’t specifically know the details of the lens used to videotape Steve’s performance, but I’d wager the baby was not nearly as close to the croc while being walked as it appeared.
Good point, Q.E.D. - and we also don’t know how many other croc handlers were outside of camera range.
If I hadn’t seen so many of Steve’s shows, I’d probably be inclined to think the stunt was insane - but, having seen virtually every episode of Crocodile Hunter, I believe he knows how crocs will behave in a given situation.
IMHO, it qualifies as a stupid stunt - but only because he’s now on the receiving end of some bad press. The producers of the show are likely scrambling to put together some sort of response to the backlash.
I concur. While I have absolutely no doubt Steve was fully confident of the croc’s response, I think he failed to think through the human reaction. But, that’s all too easy to do when one is confident in one’s own abilities.
I don’t really give a good damn about the perspective change caused by a telephoto lens. If the child was within twenty feet of the croc with no barrier between them besides humans, it was too damned close.
Oh, please. a croc on dry land is no threat at all from twenty feet away. And yes, I would get that close to one, just to prove the point. This thread just goes to show the staggering degree of ignorance about the natural world that abounds these days.