I will simply add, that even though I’m not a huge Irwin fan myself, I honestly DO think that what he did, being a person in the public profile and all, was pretty damned stupid. Perhaps, his ratings are lagging and with the onset of a new TV ratings’ season, he thought he may attract a little more attention for his perhaps up-and-coming TV shows… who knows?!
But I must say, all things being considered, he DOES seem to know and understand crocodiles to a certain extent because of his long history of learning, understanding and inter-reacting with those ugly beasts… and with that knowledge he knew, with the crocodile standing up on it’s front legs at a 45 degree angle to its body, would not (apparently) allow the crocodile to instantly attack - if facts be true, they can only attack when in a horizontal bodily position. Hence, Irwin would have read the body languange of that croc and known that there was no instant threat of safety to either himself or his baby.
Stupid stunt nonetheless, perhaps one that he didn’t think about enough before allowing it to become prime media focus, or else a clever way of becoming back “out there” for his own promotional purposes.
Ole Stevo’s a really good example of someone that is really knowledgable about one particular thing in life, but is a little dense when it comes to everything else. :dubious:
Ole Stevo’s a really good example of someone that is really knowledgable about one particular thing in life, but is a little dense when it comes to everything else. :dubious:
My take is that this is only a PR issue. I don’t think the people that are outraged are thinking straight, even though it is a quite natural reaction (instinct says crocodile + baby = bad).
Irwin is one of the most experienced in the world with these animals. I would wager that a parent putting his child in a car (with a baby chair) is putting it at a greater risk.
If you really want something to get upset about that is simmilar to this, I would recommend rotweiler and pitbull owners with babies. There’s multiple cases every year of infants and babies being killed by dogs. Parents leaving a big, potentially aggressive (due to breeding) dog unsupervised with a child. Actually, I bet that even with the parent there the baby would be at bigger risk then in this case with Irwin.
I’ll give the man the benifit of the doubt and say that he probably knows crocs and their behavior pretty well. So, he likely didn’t feel that he was putting his kid in any danger.
On the other hand, if he’d stopped for a moment and rubbed two brain cells together he would have realized using his son in the show in that manner would cause all kinds of outcry (as it has). So, if he wanted to feed a croc while holding his son - he should have done it out of context of the show. I felt it was pretty dumb and that he just did it for the “wow” effect of it. Made me feel he was even more of “just a showman” than I thought before.
After watching the footage on the TV yet again, the other thing that causes me concern, is Steve Irwin’s handling of his own child. When he was making it “run” away, he was only holding that 4 week old baby under his arms - where was the head and neck support for that poor little baby?
Having handled and lived with various reptiles for seven+ years, and being fairly familiar with a reptilian predator brain, i can say I think Steve Irwin was not putting the child in danger.
First item to be considered: These crocs are trained to be tossed food. Unless Mr. Irwin threw his little boy at the croc (which would be dangerous), the big beast wouldn’t be likely to even think of the child as anything other than an extension of Steve’s body.
Second: Reptiles are slow, slow witted things. My savannah monitor is considered a “bright” reptile, and he won’t even try to eat anything that isn’t given directly to him. He’s no croc (he’s related to the esteemed Komodo Dragon species), but none of my other reptiles have taken a strike at anything that wasn’t food if they weren’t being provoked. Had Mr. Irwin poked the croc with a stick or tried to piss it off greatly I could see cause for concern. But the thing ate his chicken and wasn’t hungry anymore, so it turned away. It wasn’t looking to eat a kid.
This guy knows his crocodiles. He knows their behavior and he’s probably better off in knowing whether or not the thing is going to take a chunk out of his kid than anyone.
Wasn’t the brightest of moves on his part, but he could do a lot worse.
I know that Steve really does know his animals, but I have the distinct impression that he did it precisely because of the danger. He made a bit of a deal of it himself, before it got such negative reactions. I think it was a bit of “I’m a fabulous tightrope walker, so I’m going to just stroll across this rope about five feet off the ground.”
Sure, you’re almost certainly going to handle it, and it’s not much risk comparatively, but if you fall off badly and upside down, the baby could catch the worst of it. I think it’s very much a parallel.