Just for any Aussies, Denton has rejigged Enough Rope tonight to reshow his interview with Irwin from a couple of years ago.
As I said in the other thread, how very sad. 
Gah, I was the way he would check out was by being hit by bus.
Didn’t expect this this morning.
Sad for his family and the animal world. He loved his job.
Sad, and a true loss. I hope and believe he has been an inspiration for others to follow in his footsteps.
RIP steve, I visited Australia Zoo a few years ago, great place. He sure was a larger than life in ya face character. Killed by a fish…wow…
Heh…better a stingray than a mullet I guess.
Was he? I wasn’t aware of that. What work did he do?
Was he? What cite do you offer?
I know he was a first class self-publicist.
I don’t believe The Australian to be the greatest paper of all time, far from it, but “tabloid-y”?
The newest article says his wife and children have been informed. Looks like a moment of carelessness dominoed into enormous misfortune. 
I don’t know who I feel most for, his widow or his young children. The world has lost a high profile conservationist, and all the “coulda woulda shoulda’s” in the world won’t change it.
(You misattributed the qoute you were questioning Princhester, btw) Cite:
I’m sorry the man is dead. I’m sorry for his family and for those around the world who loved him.
Steve Irwin, from what I saw, taught us that it’s OK to disturb and manipulate animals in their own environments. I didn’t see lessons in conservation – I saw terrified creatures.
:mad:
Really? Can you tell us what animal you saw him handle that was terrified? Or are you just assuming that certainly they must have been?
And if he did disturb animals, in the long run it is far outweighed by the attention he brought to various species and their plight. He helped raise awareness and appreciation of animals across the planet. I dare say there has never been an animal that met Steve Irwin that was not better off for it, either directly, or through his efforts on their behalf. And on occassion, if he had to make a decision that possibly adversely affected an animal, it was in the interest of benefiting many more.
If you did not see lessons in conservation, you were not watching Steve Irwin. Or you are incredibly dense. Possibly both. :mad:
If you have specific examples, please post them. Otherwise, it is incredibly poor form to crap on a guys life work on the day of his death. If we are wrong, please enlighten us.
What an unfortunate loss. At least he went doing something he loved - a small comfort for his family and those who knew him, I know… certainly better than choking on his cheerios. Still, he brought a lot of conservation issues (especially those affecting “non-cuddly” creatures) to the general public, and for that, we thank him.
How horrible for his wife and children.
I feel as if a close friend has died.
Remember the thread abut what celebrity death would affect us the most? I never DREAMED his would be so soon.
I really cannot find words right now.
Rest in peace Steve. You will be sorely missed by many.
This is very weird from an Australian perspective. Like others upthread, I first heard of him on this Board. He was not well-known at the time in Australia and came to fame here as someone liked by foreigners. It feels to me like a the-French-love-Jerry-Lewis thing. The response has been amazing - numerous Australian news sites were down during the afternoon, despite managing fine during Sept 11, the Bali bombing etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry he’s dead. But he seemed a side-show level act to me. Well-intentioned enough, but more a showman than a naturalist.
Perhaps that’s an overly harsh reaction due to the mild embarrassment Australians like me feel when Australia is not portrayed in a way with which I feel comfortable.
This is so sad.
I’m wondering if there is some footage of the attack since he was filming a documentary off the Great Barrier Reef. :eek:
Aw man.
Look, I know the criticisms. I know he was corny in an old-fashioned way. I was a bit skeptical of how close he’d get to wild animals, and it looks like there was something to that one, eh? There’s also room to criticize his pestering animals for entertainment value.
But when he would pick up the most disgusting, spiny, fat, glossy scorpion and hold her up to the camera and say, unexpectedly, “She’s soooo beautiful,” he was right. Right in a way that almost no one in popular culture has been.
They ARE beautiful. They’re gorgeous. All the strange wild creatures he showed us. And they have a right to live, a right independent of our opinions and standards of beauty. And that’s a message desperately needed in this world that’s rapidly becoming mostly humans and the species humans have domesticated.
Steve Irwin was a man not just awake to the wonders of all creation, but filled with vibrant wonder at them – and like a little kid, he couldn’t wait to show us.
I know him only from television, but I’m going to miss him.
I leave anyone who misses Steve’s antics, and toys with the idea of doing something to mark his passing, with this thought: it’s ok if, in fifty years, children ask “who was Steve Irwin?”
It won’t be okay if they have to ask “What was the Great Barrier Reef? What did stingrays look like?”
RIP Steve Irwin, croc wrangler, naturalist, environmentalist, goofball, entertainer…animal.
Sailboat
Favorite Steve Irwin moment:
Steve talking about how snakes are deaf, and to show us he goes up to this large grassy thicket where there is a large, poisonous snake - gets about a foot away from it, and yells:
OY! SNAKE!
at the top of his lungs. Snake just ignores him.
RIP, Steve
Now that I have gotten past the shock (and denial) of his bizarre death, I wanted to come back and share a bit more in a sort of mini-tribute.
The first time I really became aware of him (and completely sucked in to his show) was when my then-fiance, now husband and I watched a marathon of his Croc Hunter show on Animal Planet on New Years Eve 1999. Yeah, we’re party animals all right. Anyway, beyond the nerdishness of that, we were both just slack-jawed watching him, among other things, crawl into a lair filled with rattlesnakes, and effervecently exclaim, “Aw, there’s 30 of them in here! Aren’t they GORGEOUS!” …with the rattles of dozens of snakes providing the soundtrack.
I have always fancied myself a sort of backyard conservationist, and his unbridled enthusiasm and truly emotional involvement with all creatures (anyone see the one where they tried saving a baby elephant, which ultimately died? Irwin wept openly, and I did with him) was admirable and memorable. He respected animals, even the most maligned ones, and in fact he celebrated them.
Partially inspired by him, I now have two harmless snakes in my classroom. Students are afraid of them initially, but I teach them that these pets are far more harmless than the cute-little-furry rodents they eat. I love watching the timid kids slowly grow receptive, then eager, then protective of our two little scaled mascots.
I do have to say his death has impacted me like that of only one other celebrity: Jim Henson. When Henson died in 1990, it was such a waste. Henson died of pneumonia, which seemed so odd and avoidable. What otherwise healthy adult man dies of pneumonia these days? And Henson was such an inspiration of hope, and imagination, and color, and life. It was cruel of fate to take him early.
It is cruel that Irwin died in such a freakish accident. Considering all the risks he’s taken, it’s surprising that this is what would be his undoing. Perhaps it was a complacency thing on his part; a recent discussion here about a man killed in a wood chipper (shudder) comes to mind. There, it was repeated that complacency kills–it was the undoing of a professional who absent-mindedly used his foot to kick a log deeper into a chipper, and perhaps it was the undoing of a conservationist who swam above the deadly barb of a stingray. Still, I wouldn’t necessarily have thought anything of it, whereas I would definitely have kept my foot away from a wood chipper. Dammit Steve!
It’s Labor day morning here. I’ve got the day off, and I turned on the TV while breakfast was cooking, expecting the usual morning show tripe. Instead I heard “the Crocodile Hunter” and “freak accident” and felt like I’d been gutpunched. I turned off the boob tube and turned on the computer because I’d rather get bad news from the Dope than from an anchordroid or worse, a radio “personality”. The thread title was the first I knew of the manner of Steve’s death; I’d been hoping, if that’s the right word, that it was a motor vehicle accident or something else mundane enough to thwart the inevitable “He had it coming” responses. Which I see that cetain poster upthread has already tossed in, and thank you newscrasher for answering that one as it deserved.
You nailed it, better than I could say it.
The first time I saw Steve Irwin was on the Animal Planet channel here in the U.S. I remember sitting there with my mouth open at this guy who laid atop thrashing crocodiles. I’ve always thought of myself as an animal lover, but I soon realized I’d been ignorant regarding crocs, that they weren’t mindless killers, and here was this guy risking life and limb to show the world their true nature. So what if he was “bigger than life” and turned some people off? He was obviously the real deal.
Ab-so-frelling-lutely.
As it apparently also did to the stingray.
I can’t help it, when I saw the headline I thought he was killed by this.
