I dunno – I don’t despise the guy enough to swear at him, so I haven’t put it in the Pit.
But something brought him to mind today, and my first thought was, “What an idiot. He was lucky for so many years of poking and prodding at deadly animals, and he finally got what his whole career seemed to be working toward.”
I don’t think celebrating his death is appropriate. Could we chalk it up to Darwin? Probably. But he did a lot of good work drawing attention to these lovely creatures, and his joie de vivre was infectious. He left behind a young family. I think all around it’s quite sad.
Yes, probably it is. Unless you can come up with some specific examples of him being a scatter-brained boob who risked animals and himself, to no appreciable benefit, then I’m sticking with yes.
When I saw him working with animals he was generally very careful, and usually took the time to explain why what he was doing was safe (crocodile cannot bend in this direction so tree placed here protects me) or to explain that what he was doing was in fact really dangerous, he was being very careful, and no one should ever do this without training. His work raised awareness of animals around the world, raised money to protect animals and educate people about animals, and as far as I can tell, his legacy still does so. Please point to where his harm (if any) has outweighed his good.
There are in fact idiots out there who would fit your epitaph. I don’t think Steve was one of them. IMO.
He used his fortune to purchase several hundred thousand acres of wilderness to be left undeveloped to preserve wildlife habitats in their natural state, so he did something positive for wild creatures. He truly loved animals and died what he loved doing. How many people can say that?
There was this incident:
USATODAY.com - Crikey! Steve Irwin takes baby to crocodile feeding, draws Aussie ire
He did some good but his Aussie stereotype-turned-up-to-11 shtick was awful.
The irony is he was killed by something almost nobody actually gets killed by.
It’s like a famous tornado chaser that died because he got struck by meteorite.
the first time I ever saw him was before he had his own show when discovery would have several segments of different people on the same show he was showing off some nest he had found in the desert/jungle/outback
All of a sudden you’d hear this hideous bellowing and they stopped the story and went to check it out … and found a watering whole with a painfully pissed off crock he knew something was up so he just bails in the water over the objections of his wife and crew dodges the croc and grabs it snout while it was open and had the camera show that the croc had infected teeth (didn’t have the bird to clean it yet I guess ) his wife is having kittens because he wasn’t using nay of the precautions they usually use … and hes playfully saying all the ways he could maimed or eaten …when the croc calms down he simply pulls out a medium long knife and sees the gums so swollen that the teeth are just gonna break off and says here’s where I try bush dentistry
he then pokes the knife in far enough to pop the teeth out … cleans them out expounds on the properties of the teeth … and says softly to the camera " don’t tell the wife but there might be poisonous snakes in the water due to the flooding that caused the watering hole in the first place … as hes bounding back out …
No. Dump away!
There are photos and videos that show just how far away he actually was. Which is much farther than other photos seem to show.
Makes me think of this clip.
I thought it funny, but I’m so bad.
I didn’t watch him much, but I second **Sunny Daze **and cochrane.
What **ivylass **said. His death was one of those rare celebrity deaths that really upset me.
How many people have ever been killed that way? A stingray barb to the heart? I’m not saying the fates were punishing him, but Jesus.
That is what I was going to say although I think his death doesn’t even need an analogy because it makes a fine one on its own. He played with crocodiles and deadly snakes for a living yet somehow managed to be one of the few people killed by a stingray by taking a barb right to the heart. It was a genuinely freak accident that could have happened to countless scuba divers all around the world but he was the one that got really unlucky. If he got killed by something known to be truly deadly, I would probably think that he had at least some of it coming. Instead, it is just sad.
It reminds me of a coworker I had. He was a 22 year old up and comer in the MMA world and had a professional fight scheduled in a Rhode Island casino earlier this year. People, including his uncle that works in the same location, were understandably worried about him because it is a brutal sport. He went to his gym for a final practice before the match and was driving home when a tractor trailer swerved into his lane and forced his car into a tree. He lived for a little while but not long enough to be extracted from the wreck and make it to the hospital.
Very rare in general and exceedingly rare in Australia.
“Fatal stingray attacks on humans are exceedingly rare. Only two have been reported in Australian waters since 1945. Both victims were stung in the chest, like Irwin. Worldwide, death by stingray is similarly rare, with only one or two fatal attacks reported each year.”
Yeah, his death probably did not “need” much in the way of an analogy…
Seems to me all in all he was decent enough guy that meant well…when I die I hope I get that much…
I can’t get behind dumping on Steve Irwin. His over-the-top enthusiasm aside, his respect and admiration for wildlife was unquestionable, and I’m sure he provided inspiration to many children and sparked their curiosity about the natural world. That’s a good thing.
Yeah, while we’re at it, let’s Pit Marlon Perkins! 
You don’t have to dump on him, but the irony and karma kind of stuff can’t be denied. We’ve seen the film. He was like Charlton Heston in Khartoum ripping that thing out of his chest and collapsing. Heroic, but flawed stuff. Trooper to the end. (I guess that’s kind of dumping on him.)
The relentless Irwin self promotion machine is enough to make one ill. His daughter Bindi is now its subject. The power behind it all is Steve’s widow Terri who now owns the zoo started by Steve’s father. The very limited comments made by Steve’s father at the time suggest he was pushed out. I would have my suspicions as to who did so.
Yeah, how about him? Anyways making Jim Fowler go into the swamp to wrestle the constipated alligator while he sat high and dry trying out a new daiquiri recipe.