Latest / Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People / The Wild Life of Steve Irwin

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The Wild Life of Steve Irwin · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Hey Alex, good to see you, man.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: Hey Kelly, what's up, man?
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, happy Thursday.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Just glad to be back visiting uh Dirtnap City and talking about an interesting dead person.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: I I've got a really great one this week.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Someone I've been excited about for a while.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: It's another one of your uh 12-hour audiobooks.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: It takes so long to produce these episodes.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I gotta do a lot of driving, mow a lot of yards uh in order to do a lot of dishes.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: You just drive just to listen to the the audiobook.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I can't listen to it just sitting still.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: No, so if you have a you know, if you're doing Winston Churchill, you're driving to Seattle and back.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, twice.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Twice.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: A lot of wasted time.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: No, no, not at all.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: I find these people fascinating, and I certainly find uh with gas our time together these days.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: It's getting a lot of things.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's true.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I need to I need to get an electric vehicle just to be able to study um the whole dirt nap city subjects.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: And and for today's, I want to talk to you about a guy um who actually passed away pretty recently.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: He he died in 2006 and was born in 1962.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, this guy, so he died at a pretty young age.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, he had a pretty unconventional childhood and grew up really, really close to nature.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Not not not like Johnny Appleseed, kind of close to nature, but but more a little rough and tumble close to nature.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, is this uh is he Australian?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, he was.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna tell you he was a Steve Irwin?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: It is Steve Irwin.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I did pretty good with very few clues there.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: You really did, you really did.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh unconvened.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I think a lot of people remember his death, right?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: 2006.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, you do, right?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was a big deal.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: It was a big deal.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: You know what got him finally?
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Was it a ray?
2:10
SPEAKER_00: It was a stingray, yeah.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't wasn't a croc after all.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: But we'll get to that.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not what we're here to talk about, really.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: We're here to talk about him as a person, as a copy celebrate his life.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: And if you're new to this show, we don't harp on the the the death usually.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no, that's it's not about their their death, it's about what they did in life, why they were interesting, how they impacted the world, kind of what their legacy is, all those things more so than than how they died.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Um he he was born in Australia.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Um actually was born in a suburb of Melbourne in 1962.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: His birthday is in February.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: He was born to Lynn and Bob Irwin.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, Bob was a plumber and Lynn was a maternity nurse.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they both had a love for animals.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lynn and Bob did.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: They they they actually, you know, living in Australia, they collected a lot of snakes, a lot of reptiles.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: They would nurse koalas back to health, they would nurse kangaroos back to health, like if a a baby kangaroo had been abandoned by its mother.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: His mother was really good at doing that, Lynn was.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Um now her his father, Bob, was a was a plumber and a fairly successful plumber.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: But at one point, um, and actually the book I read was about uh was by his father, about Steve, kind of about his father's life, Bob's life, but also a lot about Steve.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And his father told the story of being a plumber.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: They had gotten into digging these trenches, and they were digging trenches to lay pipes to be able to do, you know, like sewer systems and uh wastewater and water delivery and stuff.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: He was down in a pretty deep hole working on this trench, and it collapsed on him.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: And if it hadn't been for the quick actions of the man he was working for who brought a backhoe and but you know, they couldn't really backhoe him out because it might hurt him.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: The guy used a combination of a backhoe to get some of the dirt out and a shovel, got him out just in time.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: He was just about to pass out from a lack of oxygen.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's a point at which he had this revelation, Bob Irwin did, and said, you know what, I'm gonna change my life.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh being a plumber is is okay, but it's not what I want to do with the rest of it.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And he decided to dedicate his life to um herpetology, which is the study of um cold cold-blooded uh lizards and things like that, snakes.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he moved the family to Queensland.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: They bought three acres of land and they moved to this area in Queensland called Beerwa.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: B East.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Queensland's like inland, right?
4:57
SPEAKER_01: That's like in the bush.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, you know, I actually thought it was in the Gold Coast.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I thought that they were or the Sunshine Coast.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I think you know, Australia is a big country, and I think part of it might be in the bush, and part of it might be on the coast, but this this area of this town of Beerwa was part of the Sunshine Coast.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: So I I think it was on the coast.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Um he opened, bought this three acres, decided to open a reptile park, and it was just initially called the Beerwa Reptile Park.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: And initially he kept things like crocodiles, a lot of snakes, and these were things that back then, you know, this is this is uh the the early 70s, he could just go out and catch these things, and and he was very good at doing that.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Bob Irwin was very good at handling animals without injuring them.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And what he would look for is he would look for animals that were causing a disturbance.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: So there might be a report of a large python in a local park or something, and uh or or a crocodile that was um you know causing trouble, eating people's dogs, scaring people.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: He would go remove them, and part of that uh public service was he got to take it to the park.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: So that's how he collected a lot of the animals initially for the um Queensland Reptile Park.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Now he changed the name later to the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park because he was also into plants.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: But he decided that um this was his family's uh destiny was to run this park.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife did everything at first.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: They built their own house out of corrugated metal where they lived initially.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: They built the enclosures for the animals, they poured their own cement to make pools for these these crocodiles to live in, and they had three kids there.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So they had uh two girls, Joy and Mandy, and then those two sisters had a younger brother named Steve.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And Steve was a very, very hyperactive, energetic, uh, brave child.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: He began handling crocodiles at the age of nine.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, can you imagine this conversation with your dad?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you're growing up there, but um on his sixth birthday, his father gave him a 12-foot python to take care of.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just a weird upbringing, don't you think?
7:29
SPEAKER_01: I think that.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm surprised that you don't envy that.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that that you that seems like the kind of thing that you would have loved.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: I would love that, yes.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I I don't have any I don't have any um hesitation to say that if I had been raised that way, I feel like it would have been really cool.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Um but this was just normal for them.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Steve would bring he would bring um uh these snakes that he would catch to school.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: He'd put them in canvas bags or in pillowcases and bring them to school.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Some of these were very deadly snakes, um, but he was used to it.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: They were just kind of like his pals.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, Steve began working.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I do like snakes.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't dislike snakes.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm the same way.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: I I don't have that like innate fear of snakes.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm certainly not gonna like I don't I think I'd pass on like you know putting a bowl of constrictor around my neck or something for show, but it's it's not one of those things that like a lot of people just like have that primitive fear.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't really I mean I I'm probably not as scared as I should be, to tell you the truth.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: So, so actually kind of funny.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I started this book about a month ago um about Steve Irwin.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Been watching a lot of crocodile hunters, been watching a lot of documentaries about him and um that and so seeing him grab these snakes and and then there's there's whole YouTube channels about these guys that go catch these um invasive species in Florida.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen those videos?
9:02
SPEAKER_00: The guy that says yoink.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: No.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: He he he he walks through the Everglades, through the swamps of Florida, catches these things, you know, and this is part of a I believe it's a government program where you know you catch them and they actually humanely euthanize them because there's way too many of them and they've taken over and they're damaging the natural habitat.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But he walks in and he just goes yoink and he grabs um grabs this, you know, these giant snakes.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: And so who so who's taking over whose habitat?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Um I believe that the pythons are not native to Florida.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: They're they were brought in and they are they are basically becoming the dominant species, and it's not good for all the other animals there.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Got it, got it in Florida.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So so the reason I'm telling you this story, because we were talking about being afraid of snakes or not, was the other night um I opened the front door and on the porch was a little a little grass snake or something.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: It was it was uh maybe about a foot long, you know, not the tiniest snake, but not the biggest.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And I just naturally tried to grab it.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: But here's what always happens, and I just need to get over this.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, you try to get it right behind the neck so it can't turn around and and give you a bite.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Um and I grabbed it and then it wiggled and I dropped it.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like as soon as it starts wiggling, I let go of it.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And and uh I wasn't gonna do anything to it.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: I was literally just banking on.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I guess so.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: But um, but but I it it was funny how quickly I did it because I became a little bit desensitized from all these videos I've been watching.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, about it's like all of a sudden that just looks normal, right?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Just oh just grab it, you know.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: No, that that doesn't hit my algorithm.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't watch any of that stuff.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: It might, it might after today.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Um well so as I said, Steve um was grow growing up in the park around these animals.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: The family lived in the park.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: His his uh sisters uh managed the concession stand, they all worked to clean out the cages to take care of the animals.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: His mother would take the animals into their um house and and nurse them back to health when they were not doing well.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of sugar gliders?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: They're they're like these little they're they're mammals.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Um they're kind of like uh they look a little bit like a cross between a squirrel and a monkey, and they can fly.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And they would have sugar gliders in their house.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They and when I say fly, kind of like a flying squirrel.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, they jump and and then spread these wings and glide from place to place.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: You have those in the U.S.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: or just in Australia?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: I think people import them as pets now, like you can get a sugar glider as a pet, but that sounds like you know, he just he he had tarantulas in the house, he had um just every every manner of animal, and he was he was used to them and loved them.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, when he got to be um about nine years old, his father took him out for his first chance to actually catch a crocodile, and they would go out in a little boat, a little tin boat with a small 15, 20 horsepower motor on the back, and you know how they would find them?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: So crocodiles will hang out on the surface of the water with their entire body submerged except for their eyes, because their eyes stick up.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So just the very tip of their nose and their eyes are sticking up.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: You go out at night, you shine a flashlight, and they glow red.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Their eyes would glow red.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: So they would look for these red glowing eyes.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And when Steve was nine, his father let him catch his first crock.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, his father, you know, was kind of trying to talk to him about how to do it.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Here's the right way to do it, here's how you avoid getting bit, here's you know, here's how you don't hurt the animal because they didn't want to hurt the animals.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And they pull up to it, and this is his father from his father's book talking about this experience.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Steve just rolls over the edge of the boat right on top of it, just like leaps onto this crocodile, wrestles it, grabs it, you know, from behind so that it can't get him.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: It's got he's got his head right next to its snout, but in a way that the croc can't move its neck back, and wrestles it into the boat at nine years old.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And and this they don't consider a four-foot or a six-foot crocodile to be very big.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Those are those are those are kind of you know, juveniles, babies, not not something to be trifled with, but also not something that you should be scared of.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: And they don't have great peripheral vision, right?
13:35
SPEAKER_01: So you go behind them and they can't they can't see what's going on, right?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: They're their their eyes are well, and their eyes are also, I think it's the kind of thing where they're not they're looking in different directions almost.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're they're far enough apart that that um yeah, I think I think they see differently than we do.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, this was the beginning of his love for crocodiles, and he and his father, when he was older in his young 20s, uh, Steve and his father took a job at the Queensland East Coast Crocodile Management Program.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And this was again taking crocodiles that were causing problems and taking them out of that environment where they were causing problems.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest culprits was fishermen who would catch their fish, bring them back to the boat ramp, and then clean their fish at the boat ramp.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what that attracts?
14:28
SPEAKER_00: It attracts crocodiles because you're throwing all kinds of bloody fish bits into the water and you're kind of chumming the water at that point.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: So their job was to, as part of this Queensland East Coast crocodile management, was to trap them, tag them, and then remove them from that area and try to relocate them.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times they relocated them to their own park.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: That was part of their um you know, part of their way that they got these animals to to go into the park, but also sometimes they would have to remove them just to a different part of Australia so that they were more remote and not as uh out in the open.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: But this really begs a question.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is something I've struggled with my whole life until recently, because I think I got it down now.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: The difference between a crocodile and an alligator.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Are you are you familiar with that?
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And and there's also caymans too that are on the thing, which I think are closer to alligators than crocodiles.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, like small alligators.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about the difference between a crocodile and an alligator.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, give me give me a couple of things.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: What do you know?
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, what do you think?
15:35
SPEAKER_01: I is size part of it?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Um uh crocodiles tend to be a little bigger, but yeah, generally like the ad i i when you get into the really ginormous ones, the crocs are gonna be bigger, but but most of the time this they're about the same size.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I always thought that alligators were a little more agile, a little more nimble, a little smaller, but it probably has to do more about like bone structure and things like that, right?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Snout shape is the big giveaway.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: So a alligator has more of a U-shaped snout, and it's um it's really designed for crushing things like turtles.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a it's a actually a stronger snout, and it's wider, it's like the width of their body, like it just kind of goes straight out, comes around in a nice U-shape.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Whereas crocodiles have more of a V-shaped snout that's a little bit more pointed.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: So you'll you'll you can tell the difference immediately there.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Is an alligator called an American crocodile?
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Is that like its official name or is that a different thing?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't think so.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Do they have both in the US?
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Um alligators?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: But but not natively.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Um that that both directions.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: There are alligators in Australia and there are crocodiles in the US, but there's a lot more alligators in the in um the US and a lot more crocodiles in Australia, because that's their native.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Where I live, it's all alligators.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's gonna be alligators.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: So the other big thing is um the snout shape is is the big giveaway.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: If it's if it's kind of a U-shaped, um not not narrowed or tapered snout, then it's probably an alligator.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: If it's more of a V-shaped um snout that is a little more narrow than the body, then it's probably a crocodile.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm on the golf course and uh crocodile or a beast of all, you're not gonna see a crocodile, probably.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: If I'm on the golf course and a beast comes out of the water, does it matter if it's an alligator or crocodile?
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, there so so actually it does because of their their temperament.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Alligators are usually more reclusive and shy around humans, whereas crocodiles could be a little more aggressive and territorial.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: So guys into the snout, and if it's an if it's an alligator, I can just ignore it.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna come after you.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just just if it's if you if you're playing golf and an alligator comes out to check you out, he's probably friendly.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Pet it.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Probably just take it home, put a leash on it.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: No, no, don't, don't, don't, you don't want to taunt them, but they're generally gonna stay away from humans, and and so are crocodiles, but crocodiles are can be more aggressive.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: And also there's two different types of crocodiles.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's more than two, but really the two big groups are the um what they call the freshies and the salties.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: So the freshies are freshwater crocodiles, the salties are saltwater crocodiles.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Generally, alligators don't live in salt water.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: That's the other big difference.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Is alligators aren't they don't have um there is a uh salt gland in crocodiles that allows them to thrive in brackish water.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, whereas alligators don't have that.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: They like but you would never see either one of them like in the ocean, like in the deep waters of the ocean, right?
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Not in the deep waters, but along the coast, yes.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: You you would definitely see crocodiles along the coast.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: That was where a lot of um Steve Irwin and his father did a lot of their catching was along the coast, like off a beach, you could see it in in Australia.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And you would never see that with an alligator in swamps and they're they're mostly found in the southeast United States, alligators, um, and eastern China.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Those are the two places you natively find alligators.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Um the it's funny because several times in doing a little research on this, um, the Australian zoo, which is what the name of that place that Bob Irwin founded eventually became.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: He he rebranded it, um, does have some alligators, but they call them American alligators.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: They refer to them as American alligators.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: So um, but crocodiles you'll find in uh Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: There are there are crocodiles, especially in South America.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: So Europe doesn't have any of anything like this.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: No, no, that's not a not a not a thing that's native to Europe.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: The climate's not right for it.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Steve, as I said, was a very hyperactive, um, you know, climbing on things, getting into trouble.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: He was a handful for his parents, bringing snakes to school, all that sort of thing.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they kind of created that monster, right?
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's I think to some degree to live with the animals, you have to be that way a little bit.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he really started to calm down as he started to work at the zoo.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was a family affair, the whole family worked there.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: And then um in 1991, he met Terry Rains.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, Terry, his wife, uh, do you know much about her?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: She was an American, she was from Eugene, Oregon, and she was actually just visiting the the um crocodile park, the Australia Zoo, in uh which it wasn't called that yet, but in 1998 they renamed it.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: It's easier to remember.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, she fell in love with him, love at first sight.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: They literally started talking about animals and they started, they were they were attracted to each other.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And her quote was, I thought there was no one like this anywhere in the world.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: He sounded like an environmental Tarzan, larger-than-life superhero guy.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Um they immediately started dating.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: They got engaged four months later and got married.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: They actually came to Eugene, Oregon to get married, and then of course, you know, they have two children.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: You still see their children on TV a lot.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Do you know their names?
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Bindy is one of them called Bindy.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Bindi is the girl Bindy, and um is the boy, I don't know, Robert or something.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Robert, yeah.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, named after named after uh um Steve Irwin's father, Bob, who is really Robert.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, so So Bindi is actually a um name for a salt wire saltwater crocodile.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: It's what the it's what the um Australians refer to as a saltwater crocodile, as a bindi.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: So she's she's named after that.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what else a bindi is?
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Because I was looking this up and I didn't even know.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: I like the name though.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: I like the name.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a bindi.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: In addition to a saltwater crocodile, it also means uh the the little colored dot that uh Hindus and um Buddhists and Jains wear.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's called a bindi.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Um represents a third eye.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: So uh uh you know having these children was life-changing and one of the biggest things that ever happened to Steve Irwin.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And he really, really loved and respected his father, and he also really, really loved and respected his children.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, this was something that he talked about, the the importance of his family.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: In February of 2000, his mother was killed in a car accident.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Um his mother and his father were moving, uh, they had been they had been living kind of away from the park and they were moving back closer to the park.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: She unfortunately fell asleep at the wheel and and and died in a crash.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: But this is a little bit uh starting off in this, Steve talks about the loss of his mother and kind of what that did to him and his family.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And then he kind of talks about just family in general.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Did you ever get down?
23:27
SPEAKER_02: You talked about being, you know, uh frightened by human behavior.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: Did what gets you down?
23:32
SPEAKER_03: Um I've been down, mate.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: I've been down, I've I've been way down.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: I've been down, I've been down as far as anyone can go down, mate.
23:40
SPEAKER_03: I lost my mum in a car crash, I went down, I went right down.
23:43
SPEAKER_03: Um I watched my dad suffer, I watched my whole family suffer, and um I have never felt pain like that in my entire life, my friend.
23:52
SPEAKER_03: And what it did for me was it it actually uh hammered home uh the the whole family value thing and and and what it's like to have a family and and you're all you're everybody's someone's mum, you know, and I was down.
24:05
SPEAKER_03: I was down for the count.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: I was down for two years, I was down, way down.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: You Payne, you truly adore your parents, don't you?
24:13
SPEAKER_03: I love my parents just so much, mate.
24:16
SPEAKER_03: I you know, like my mum, how'd you be?
24:18
SPEAKER_03: You know, I was born on her birthday, and um, and all she ever did was just love me and prop me up and and get me back out in there.
24:27
SPEAKER_03: And my dad, just the legend of the universe.
24:30
SPEAKER_03: When I was the tiniest little kid, Andrew, I'd look up at my dad, and you know, he was like larger than life.
24:35
SPEAKER_03: He was just like this action hero.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: He was everything I wanted to be.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: And all I've done in my life is follow in his footsteps, mimic him, and try to be him.
24:45
SPEAKER_03: And nowadays, I just try to make him proud, mate.
24:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love my parents like um like nothing else.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: It's it's just they are everything to me, absolutely everything.
24:54
SPEAKER_03: And the day that my mum went was the day I lost something.
24:59
SPEAKER_03: I lost something.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, his mother passed away in that accident.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Um he he had been married for a couple of years at that point.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the way that uh Terry and and uh Steve spent their honeymoon was actually trapping crocodiles.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And Bob, his father, had given him a video camera while they were out in the Queensland bush doing that work, you know, several years ago.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: And you know, we talked a little bit about the the advent of VHS tape and how it kind of democratized some of this ability for people to make content.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: He started making his own content, he started filming him capturing and releasing and wrestling and handling these crocodiles.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, his his wife, um, as soon as they got married, they immediately that was the first thing they did was went out and uh went on a crocodile safari together.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: She was helping him, and there was a guy named John Stanton, who was uh um, I believe he was an American or he was British, one of the two.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: He had seen some of these tapes and realized what was going on, and this is where they first started to recognize that there was potential to make a show here.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: How did he see it?
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Were they how was he distributing this stuff, or was it like their own?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: No, no, it was it was like a thing where uh where um Steve Irwin had been showing these to friends and people like that, and someone knew somebody who knew somebody and said, You gotta see this guy.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And so they in 1996 um they debuted the crocodile hunter on Australian television, and it was successful there, and then it broke into the US, the UK, 130 countries ran the crocodile hunter.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Um weird name because he wasn't trying to kill these crocodiles, right?
26:55
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: He uh I think it was a marketing thing, right?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: They picked that name because it sounded good, it sounded tough, it sounded really um uh but it also sounds like not his brand either.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't it it I'm not a conservationist, yeah, yeah.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Um I think it was hunting in the in the respect of capturing and then freeing and justifying.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: But to be honest, I think that's why I was late to the game with him because I I was like, I don't want to watch it.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: You thought he was killing them.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: He loved crocodiles.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: He he didn't.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know that now.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: If you watch, if you watch these videos, you'll see the times when he was when he would talk to them and release them.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And one of the rules he had on the show was always be filming.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: If somebody got hurt, keep filming.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: If the animal was, you know, struggling, keep filming.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: He wanted it to be authentic, he wanted it to be real.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, do you remember what his catchphrase was?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Crikey?
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Crikey.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Um was that just his, or does everybody say that over there?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: So um actually it's what they call a minced oath.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that expression?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: So a mince a minced oath is a euphemistic expression that is you know kind of like saying uh gosh instead of God, yeah.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Um or fudge, you know.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's something that you say to um deliver a uh uh big emotional expression, you know, oh my goodness, or oh my god, or oh my whatever.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: But you're not saying it, you're not taking the Lord's name in vain, and you know what it comes from?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: What it's what it's meant from the actual Christ.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: And it was Christ King, actually.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: So Crikey was Christ King, Christ King, which I guess was something Australians would say.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: So he um he and his wife started on this journey of being able to do these shows, and it became very popular.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And with that, the the zoo expanded, the animals, you know, they got more animals.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: He built um built a larger uh crocoseum at the Australian zoo where people could come see.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: He delivered a lot of the presentations there where he would feed them and demonstrate them and show, you know, kind of I don't want to say humanize, but make them less scary to people because he was really trying to get the message out that they were just they were just animals.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: They're just, you know, they're they're high up on the food chain, but they're not trying to be ferocious, they're not trying to kill anybody, they're just doing what they naturally do.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And if you respect it, um you won't you won't get hurt.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And he would demonstrate that.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple of things happened.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Number one, uh, one time he went too far, uh, according to the public, um, the court of public opinion, he often would have Bindy um go into the crocodile's um enclosure with him and feed them and do things like that when she was about four years old.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And nobody seemed to mind that.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: But then he one time had his son Robert, who was younger, in the enclosure, was feeding the crocodiles, and the outrage, um, you know, the he was he was a one-month old at that point.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: The outrage just went crazy.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: People got really upset.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: This was around the time too when Michael Jackson had dangled his son out the hotel window.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: I remember all this, yeah.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, did you did you ever see his reaction to that, Steve Irwins?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: No.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: He was devastated.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: He said he got on, he apologized.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: He explained that neither his um son nor him were in any danger, that the angle of the camera made it look like he was closer than he was, and if you looked at it from another angle, it didn't, you know, you could tell he was further away.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: He was raised doing this, and their take on it, both Terry's and his was it's no more dangerous than teaching someone to swim.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was he was getting the child acclimated.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: That may be, but just like you and in your snake on your porch, you can keep pushing the envelope until it seems until you might um lose all sense of like what's of safe, you know what I mean?
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: And so it both of those things might be true, right?
31:36
SPEAKER_01: It might might have been a bad angle, but he might have been too reckless with an infant, right?
31:42
SPEAKER_00: I think he realized that, and I think he realized um, you know, that there was the there was the reality of it, and then there was a perception of it, right?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And the perception was terrible.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: The reality was probably less terrible, you know, not not quite as bad.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: But um, I've seen the clips, and it does look like the baby is very close to the crocodile.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Um and no file, no charges were filed.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: He actually broke down, um he broke down crying, you know, in in in a public appearance and just said, I I, you know, being a parent is one of the most important things I could ever do, and I don't want to be perceived as a bad parent, you know, and so he he and and I think when you have that sort of public um uh recognition and you're that big of a star, you've got a target on your back to some degree.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, he and his wife were also criticized in 2004 for disturbing wildlife during uh one of their um filming in the Antarctic, you know, said that they were disturbing whales and penguins and seals.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe they were, but the greater good they were trying to do was to actually um get people's awareness about what was going on happening, and and you know, I think he had a genuine um environmentalist heart and wanted to do what was right.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's pressure though, or where you know you have to keep pushing out content and you just keep you think there's pressure to just keep making it more kind of sensational and pushing the envelope a little bit more and more and more?
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, and also I think that you get you get lax, right?
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's actually what killed him.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: And desensitized to how dangerous everything actually is.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Siegfried and Roy, do you know the same thing?
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Um probably future Dirt Knapp City.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh we never talked about them, have we?
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've we've mentioned them just like this.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've never talked about them.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: No, they've never been a subject.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I wouldn't.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: If you're doing it every day, it seems safe, you know, but you're dealing with wild animals that you know don't know that this is for a show.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: No, no, they don't.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: They just they're just doing what they're instinctually uh meant to do.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to play another little clip for for you, and this clip is the tail end of that other clip, and it kind of it kind of skips around a little bit.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so but I really want you to hear a little bit about his take on family and you know, which he talked about a moment ago, but like his daughter Bindy, and then also his take on fame and money.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: And so just listen to this.
34:15
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting when you say you you've you've mimicked your parents, you look after your dad, you've basically carried on the family business.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: Do you have a sense of yourself as yourself?
34:27
SPEAKER_02: What will it be for you when your father goes?
34:29
SPEAKER_02: Will you be able to be yourself?
34:31
SPEAKER_03: I see my dad getting older and older and older.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: And uh and I must admit I'm scared.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm really, really scared that when I when I lose him, that my life is gonna change yet again.
34:41
SPEAKER_03: I am gonna go down again.
34:43
SPEAKER_03: Um but I'm really lucky that I've got a the most drop-dead gorgeous wife on earth who is just so strong and and so passionate and so Stevo orientated.
34:56
SPEAKER_03: Like she just mate, you wouldn't, she is if I said Rideo's tweet art today, we're um gonna jump off a cliff, she'll go, Ride.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: She'd pack a bag though.
35:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, she'd go away.
35:11
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, I've I've got this thing, this, I've got the Terry factor, mate, I've got this wife that is so incredibly intelligent and and strong that I reckon between us we'll get through it.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: And of course, my daughter is, she is like, she's gonna be a Tibetan monk.
35:27
SPEAKER_03: She is like incredibly insightful.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: And and um when her grand died, um she was very, very young, but you know, she just she'd hold my hand and and and she'd give me strength.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: And what good is a fast car, a flash house, and a gold plated dunny to me?
35:43
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely no good at all.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: I've been put on this planet to protect wildlife and wilderness areas, which in essence is gonna help humanity.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: I want to have the purest oceans, I want to be able to drink water straight out of that creek, I want to stop the ozone layer, I want to save the world.
35:59
SPEAKER_03: And you know, money?
36:00
SPEAKER_03: Money's great.
36:01
SPEAKER_03: I can't get enough money, and you know what I'm gonna do with it?
36:03
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna buy wilderness areas with it.
36:05
SPEAKER_03: Every single cent I get goes straight into conservation, and guess what, Charles?
36:10
SPEAKER_03: I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: I'll use it and I'll spend it on buying land.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: So that that you know, that idea of buying up land and building these wilderness preserves is actually something he did.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: He put his money where his mouth is and he bought thousands and thousands of acres in multiple continents and kind of turned them into um national parks.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's private land, but he would set up areas for wallabies in Australia or kangaroos who had been injured.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, he would set up areas for crocodiles, he he bought stuff in the United States, he bought stuff in Fiji, Australia.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, he considered himself a and and he and the other thing was a lot of that land might have been cleared otherwise, like forests and natural habitats that might have been built up.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: He considered himself a wildlife warrior.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: That was his um his sort of um take, and that was what the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation actually changed his name to was Wildlife Warriors Worldwide.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: So cool to just um hear from anybody that has that much of a sense of purpose in their life.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just purpose and purpose and enthusiasm, right?
37:23
SPEAKER_01: Just well, and the you know, those two and I guess those two things can exist without charisma, but man, you add the charisma too, and you've really got and good looks.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, he's a good looking guy, right?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Good-looking bloke, as they say.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Um what a force.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: He was a huge force, and I think I think you know, in the US, every well, most people would recognize him.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: They'd know if you said crocodile hunter, you you'd know who we were talking about.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: But in Australia, he was God.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, in Australia, he was just over the top, so famous.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: There was even talk about after he died removing the Queen's um picture from the money and putting Steve Irwin's picture on the money.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's crazy.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, it didn't happen.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he was respected by, you know, of course, he made the rounds on um talk shows, you know, uh Conan O'Brien and David Letterman and Jay Leno, and he'd bring his animals on.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I think that's a tradition.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: There's been people that have done that for years and years on Johnny Carson and such.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: But he was also respected by um David Attenborough, who, you know, is one of the greatest wildlife documentarians in the world, um, who who who spoke and you know said great things about him after he passed away.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, Steve was also a uh mixed martial artist.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: He he practiced that.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: He loved cricket, he loved uh rugby, he loved Australian football, I guess.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: And he watched a lot of Australian football.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And I've never quite understood the difference between Australian football, English football, and the U.S.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: football.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: English football, yes, that's that's a totally different thing.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: But Australian football is closer to American football, I think.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, between yeah, it's a it's a lot, yeah.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of more jumping, and yeah it's it's pretty cool.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, he also was a big uh surfer.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, he he did, I guess that's another reason that I would say Queensland is near the coast because he grew up surfing, he learned how to surf really well, and and that was a big thing for him was to go out and to to surf.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, he had some, of course, endorsement deals.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, he was sponsored by a Toyota, the Toyota Land Cruiser was his vehicle of choice, and he he always you know used that and and actually, you know, it was something that he was very passionate about.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: But he also have you heard of the Gone?
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a train line that goes from North to South Australia, and he was an ambassador for it, and it was it was supposed to take you through some of the most beautiful and um remote parts of Australia, and so he was a he was a sponsor of that.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And then I found this little gem of a commercial which really kind of sums up his um his sense of humor.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a 30-second spot for FedEx, and what he's talking about is um now both he and his father were bit by venomous snakes several times, and they were able to survive because they would get the they knew it could happen, and so they'd have the antidote, you know, the anti-toxin or the anti-venom close by.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: This one, he uh he's out, he's handling a dangerous snake.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a TV commercial, but you'll just hear the audio.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: He's handling a dangerous snake.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: The snake snaps him, and then he says, uh, you'll hear what he says and just see what you think.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: I just think it's hilarious.
40:47
SPEAKER_03: Now, this is the fierce snake, the most venomous snake in the world.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: One bite from him, and it's all over.
40:54
unknown: No!
40:55
SPEAKER_03: Ah! No worries, mate.
40:57
SPEAKER_03: Luckily, we've had the anti-venom sent from America via FedEx in my line of work.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: If you're not absolutely sure, you're absolutely dead.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: Oh, crikey! It appears we've used a different courier who hasn't arrived yet.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: It's okay because he just falls over.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: I know, it's intense, but it's it's uh, I don't know.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: It just seems like seems like a good uh, you know, don't take it too seriously kind of thing.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: He was in a lot of shows, right?
41:31
SPEAKER_00: He was in um uh several shows posthumously.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Um he had actually recorded a voice of an elephant seal named Trev for Happy Feet, which I think was a Disney, you know, kind of um uh show.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the the crocodile hunter still runs pretty much all the time on Animal Player.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Um oh yeah, it's syndicated, and you can you can watch it.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to find.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: I was I was surprised.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: They still show.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Um they uh of course have now a show, or they for a little while they had a show called Crikey, it's the Irwins, and that was uh that was a show with his family.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: And then the Osborne's where they just kind of followed family around doing yeah adventures.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Um they uh they were on the Wiggles, you know that show he had a cameo appearance in 2001 on Dr.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: Doolittle.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Um of course, and and then uh yeah, I mean these all kind of make sense, right?
42:30
SPEAKER_00: And then Bindy Sue had a show for a little while called Bindy the Jungle Girl on Animal Planet.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: So uh and then I think I think her son, I think his son has been on uh like Dancing with the Stars recently or something.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I thought Bindi was on Dancing with the Stars.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they both have been, but I think Robert has been.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: I know Robert was on it recently because I've seen a lot of him.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: They're like adults now.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: They're in their 20s.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bendy has a Bendy has a daughter.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: Like they have they have, you know, um Steve would have been a grandfather.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: And is Bob still around?
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Bob is still alive, yes.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Um there is some tension in the family, and Bob is somewhat um uh what is it called?
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Um estranged.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Estranged from the family, yeah.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's it's I I've he talks about it a little bit in the book towards the end of it, um, but none of them really want to talk about why.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: But um it's not like they're throwing barbs at each other or anything like that.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: It's just he doesn't really see the family and they don't see him, and there's some reason behind it.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: His book, though, was pretty pretty interesting.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: It was it was uh an account of his life, a lot about Steve and and all their adventures together.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Um and the the uh zoo is still open, the the Australia Zoo is still open, and you know, it's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Australia now.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: So when he died, was it just in filming another episode of the regular show, or was it anything extraordinary about um the
44:00
SPEAKER_00: So I I can yeah I can tell you the the story um pretty fair fairly concisely.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: So uh they were filming a show called Ocean's Deadliest, and they were off the coast of Australia uh near the Great Barrier Reef, and they were actually so he had his own ship at that point, Steve did.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: And so they would use his ship as their base for going out and um you know filming uh on the water, and they were searching for um they were searching for tiger sharks, and they wanted to get some shots of tiger sharks in the water.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: So they were out in a little uh they called it a uh a ducky, the little rubber, rubber boat, and they called them duckies.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: And it was he and his cameraman, whose name is Justin Lyons, and they didn't find any tiger sharks, but they found a big stingray, and they thought, oh, this will be a good opportunity.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: So they had scuba gear, they they dove over the side, and the stingray was one of the largest they had seen.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: They had filmed stingrays many times before, so they kind of knew what to expect and how to approach it and stuff like that.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: They went down, well, they weren't very deep in the water, just you know, maybe 10, 12 feet down, and they were doing some shots with the stingray, and they decided that the um this could be a good opening shot for this ocean's deadliest, where you saw the stingray, and then Steve swims up behind it.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: And so they did that, and um when they did the stingray, this is the theory, mistaked um Steve Irwin for a tiger shark.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: It saw its shadow, saw a shape swimming over the top of him, and started jabbing at him with its barb, and its barb got into his chest, punctured his lung, um a lot of bleeding, and they were able to pull him back aboard the boat, but he had lost a lot of blood.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Um his you know, his heart and chest were cut open, and he bled out very quickly.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: And his last words before he passed out was, I'm dying.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: And he he passed away.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: He was surrounded by several members of his crew, including the cameraman who had been in the water with him, but also by um uh there was a guy named uh Brian, who they called Bryno, who was a very good friend of his who was there at the end.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they had to let the family know his his wife and kids were were uh I think I think they were traveling, they were somewhere else.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: And his kids were pretty young then, right?
46:34
SPEAKER_00: They were, they were.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: They had a huge um memorial service for him at the crocoseum in the park.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, hundreds of people came to that.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: There was a private service and then a public service, and you know, one of the big uh moments in that was Bindy speaking about her father and holding it together.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And she was like four or five years old at the time.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Really, really kind of a strong yeah, very strong, um, but a very strong showing from her.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, she really got up and was able to speak without so this wasn't too long after he had um had that video you said that you were talking about.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: This was 2006, yeah, when when he when he passed away.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it was it was a big loss for the world and a really, really big loss for Australia, right?
47:23
SPEAKER_00: He was you don't you don't get you, you know, there's plenty of stars, movie stars from Australia, but most people don't realize they're Australian, I think.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you start thinking about some of these folks like Mel Gibson um or uh who's the woman?
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Um Nicole Kidman.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Nicole Kidman, yeah.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: I I think a lot of people forget they're Australian.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Steve Irwin was as Australian as you get.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was he he he he wore the badge.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: But the whole family still does the does the they still are in that line of work, right?
47:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't think yes, they still run the zoo.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: So the zoo is still their main thing.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're they have any shows going right now, but I do think they appear on you know on shows.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: They they show up as um subject matter experts from for various things.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Um and there is still uh kind of a brand, that Erwin family brand that still exists.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so that is uh Steve Irwin.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of final thoughts about him that you won't won't hear about from many people.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: He has two things named after him that are probably as opposite of things as you could have named after you.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: You want to you want to take a guess?
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Um it might be more, but these two stood out to me.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: How would I guess?
48:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like he has an asteroid, an asteroid named after him.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: Pretty it's called the 57567 Crikey is the name of that asteroid.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: And then he has a snail species named after him.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Crikey Steve Erwinnie.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: It's a real thing, it's a real thing.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: Um and and the Irwin family still operates the Australian zoo.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: As I said, it's become, you know, because of their fame and and probably to some degree, you know, sometimes when people die, they become even more famous.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, it it it is one of the biggest attractions that you can go see in Australia.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: You ever been to Australia?
49:24
SPEAKER_00: No, have you?
49:25
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'd I'd love to go.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it's beautiful.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: This this really made me uh interested in it as far as a land that has a lot of mart modernity to it, a lot of uh modern trappings, but then a lot of wild wildness to it as well.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: If you went, you would go for the eco-tourism, right?
49:44
SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that'd be uh actually um I've heard that Perth is one of the most beautiful places on in the world, and it's it's kind of on the opposite end of the country from um Sydney and kind of the bigger the bigger centers, like it's hard to get to, but how cool would that be?
50:03
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Crikey.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: That's uh Steve Irwin.
50:07
SPEAKER_03: Crikey, mate.
50:08
SPEAKER_03: Is there anything in this world that would want to make me give away what I'm doing now?
50:15
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there is.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: When my children can take the football that I call wildlife conservation and run it up.
50:26
SPEAKER_03: When they're ready to run up our mission, I will gladly step aside.
50:30
SPEAKER_03: And I guarantee you it'll be the proudest moment of my life.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: And my job will be done then and only then will I know that I have achieved my ultimate goal to be able to stand aside and let let them run up my mission.