RCReptiles.com

[reptilehunter]

The Sunday Times September 10, 2006
Irwin's daughter, 8, to be wildlife star
Paul Ham, Sydney


THE widow of Steve Irwin, the television naturalist killed last week when a stingray barb pierced his heart, is expected to fulfil one of his last wishes by allowing their eight-year-old daughter Bindi to star in her own wildlife series.

Irwin, 44, had just begun filming for Bindi’s show when he died off the Great Barrier Reef. He wanted her to be seen with small reptiles and tropical fish rather than his trademark crocodiles and poisonous snakes.

The series would be a playful look at the “little stuff on the reef”, Irwin told a friend just before he entered the water for the last time.

Footage for the programme has now been impounded by a Queensland coroner for the inquest into Irwin’s death. It is reported to show a 220lb bull stingray lashing out at him with its tail. Irwin pulls the serrated barb from his chest before convulsing and losing consciousness in a cloud of blood.

Amid an outpouring of grief in Australia, Irwin’s American widow Terri, 42, a fellow conservationist, is determined to press ahead with the television project as a first step towards preserving his legacy, say friends.

“Bindi will walk in her father’s shoes,” said Mary Rayner, general manager of the Australian Reptile Park in New South Wales, which has had a long association with Irwin. “Steve was just about to bring his daughter down here to start filming.”

Under the plans for the programme, Bindi would be shown handling harmless snakes and feeding small lizards such as the Solomon Islands skink, geckos and chameleons.

Joel Little, manager of the Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary in South Australia, said: “Bindi is in the public eye. Children of a similar age would be able to associate with her. And she’s the daughter of Steve. So it will work.”

Irwin’s sudden death at the height of his fame and earning power has raised questions about the future of his sprawling wildlife empire, whose fate depends on whether his family and management team can make enough money to sustain it.

Already experts are speculating about the possibility that cutbacks may be needed to save his Australia Zoo in 45 acres of lush rainforest near Beerwah, his birthplace on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It contains more than 750 native animals including the crested iguana, the canopy goanna and the bilby, a burrowing marsupial.

Re-runs of Irwin’s documentaries are not expected to generate the funds that will be needed. “Australia Zoo might have to look at downscaling to survive,” said Rayner. “The zoo has expanded dramatically. That will have to stop now.”

The zoo includes a “croc coliseum”, which opened last year, in which crocodiles are fed in a ring built in the style of a Roman amphitheatre.

Two years ago Irwin caused uproar by holding his month-old baby son Bob with one hand while feeding a large crocodile with the other. He denied that the boy had been in danger but new safety regulations were introduced, banning children from crocodile enclosures.

On his television shows Irwin, a rowdy Dr Doolittle in khaki shorts, goaded any dangerous animal that strayed into his path while talking excitedly in a rich Aussie vernacular.

“Crikey”, “Danger! Danger! Danger!” and “Here’s a little beaudy ripper” (fine specimen) became his catchphrases.

Irwin chattered constantly to his “mates”, as he called some of the world’s most fearsome creatures. He cuddled highly venomous taipan snakes, tickled bird-eating spiders and headlocked Komodo dragons.
But daredevil encounters with bears, alligators and crocodiles sometimes backfired: he was repeatedly bitten and had “thousands of little scars”, he once told The Sunday Times.

Not everyone admired Irwin, who rose to stardom in the 1990s through a documentary series called The Crocodile Hunter. Some environmentalists claimed he demeaned blameless creatures by poking and prodding them into showing their fangs for the camera in shows adorned by the glamorous Terri.

“All across Australia, hapless wild beasts cry out, ‘Oh no, not him again!’” said one article in Outside magazine.

“Anyone who’s seen Crocodile Hunter can sense right off that the Irwins place a higher premium on entertainment than education.”

Irwin, nevertheless, became Australia’s most renowned television presenter, with millions of fans worldwide and an audience estimated at 220m. President George W Bush, who was said to be a devotee, led a wave of American tributes last week.

With his ready wit, relentless energy and enthusiasm, Irwin was a popular guest on the Jay Leno, Larry King and Oprah Winfrey shows. He returned the compliment to Winfrey by naming one of his pet koalas Oprah.

His international celebrity earned him millions of pounds, which he spent on wildlife projects. Terri, who fell in love 15 years ago after watching him wrestle a crocodile at his zoo, was the marketing wizard behind his success and shared his dream of creating huge nature reserves.

Profits from the Crocodile Hunter films — including one of the couple trapping crocs on their honeymoon — went on buying tracts of land in Australia and overseas to protect the habitats of native species. Irwin acquired tens of thousands of acres in Australia, Fiji, Vanuatu and the US.

John Weigel, a family friend and director of the Australian Reptile Park, said Irwin was always on the lookout for land containing vulnerable wildlife.

Irwin talked about plans to transform these holdings into havens similar to national parks. “Whenever we get enough cash and a chunk of land that we’re passionate about, bang, we buy it,” he said in 2003.

John Wamsley, an Australian conservationist, applauded the Irwins’ free-market approach to environmentalism. “Steve Irwin was a hero. He knew the only hope his beloved wildlife had was to save the very wilderness they needed for their survival.

“My only interest in the zoo is if they continue to spend on real conservation. I do not believe they will because I believe Steve was the only one who understood what conservation meant. I hope I am wrong.”

Irwin’s manager, John Stainton, is understood to have prepared contingency plans for financial survival in the event of Irwin’s death.

Stainton was close by when his friend was attacked while swimming just above the stingray as a cameraman filmed them. The ray appears to have plunged its 8in barb into Irwin in response to a perceived threat. “He pulled it out and the next minute he’s gone,” Stainton said.

In the short term, the survival of Irwin’s wildlife reserves is assured. More than £200,000 has already flowed into a new charity named the Crikey Foundation after his characteristic exclamation.

If it goes ahead, Bindi’s show is also expected to capture a lucrative audience, although whether she can help secure her father’s longer-term legacy remains to be seen.

[slitheringin]

I don't think Terri, or his dad, will let anything happen to the zoo or the conservation efforts.