Thanks for letting us know!

Sincerely:
David James

P.S. - You can visit me at: http://www.davidjamesmusic.net
and download the musical tribute “THE MIGHTY STEVE”

I believe the critics of Steve Irwin have missed the point that, by handling and occaissonally ‘harrassing’ potentially deadly creatures and showing they do not have some innate desire to harm all humans, has done immeasurable good for the conservation of mother nature’s less cuddly species.

Good point. I think it has been good to show that also animals who aren’t cute to look at aren’t necessary evil and just out to hurt you because of that.

The world has lost a great ambassador and personality, but that pales into insignificance against the loss suffered by his young family, very sad.

IMO you can take all the precautions in the world — that just lessens your risk, does not remove it completely.

Definitely. But this applies to pretty much everything in life; driving a car, crossing a street etc. Life itself seems to be a roll of the dice sometimes.

Some people will always say that the accident that happened today was bound to happen, one day or another. Personally, I don’t believe that. I am of the conviction that Steve had the greatest respect for animals, that he always knew what he was doing and that he would take any precautions necessary.

IMO you can take all the precautions in the world — that just lessens your risk, does not remove it completely. These are wild animals and sometimes they act differently that what the book says — or you have experience 10,000 times before.

Every time he got in the water with Crocodiles/Sharks/etc. it was a roll of the dice — its only a matter of time before you “crap out”.

He will be missed.

As an Australian, Steve Irwin really was an idol/role model for not just kids, but everyone.

Yes, it is amazing to see how he has affected all kinds of people.

As an Australian, I know first hand that Steve Irwin was…*

True; the stingray’s natural defense is to swim away, it rarely ever attacks. However, it’s believed that Steve was on one side of the stingray, and his mate was on the other side, so the theory is that it felt ‘closed-in’ and lashed it’s tail in an effort to scare them away. Unfortunately, it caught Steve in the chest, puncturing his heart.

As an Australian, Steve Irwin really was an idol/role model for not just kids, but everyone. This is reflected by the hundreds, if not thousands of people, of all ages, who headed to Australia Zoo today to lay their respects to Steve Irwin and his family in the form of flowers and such.

R.I.P Steve “The Croc Hunter” Irwin.

First, I really appreciate the tone and respect in your comment. I know people who don’t share my opinion about how he treated animlas, and they may very well be right; it’s just my peronal take of it.

I think one need to also be aware that the camera isn’t always on, but that there is instead a lot of preparations before they shoot his sequences with the animals, so it wasn’t always just the “let’s-jump-on-the-animal” experience.

Regarding the accident: yes, I’ve also read that it seems like he accidentally cornered the sting ray, and therefore it defended itself.

Brian,

I’m glad that you share my opinions and respect for Steve.

Phil,

Yes, I guess you’re right. If he had to go, that was probably the way. But being a parent, the thought of dying and leaving your children behind, no matter the way, is unimaginably terrible.

Ray,

Absolutely, I agree with you. We have to show animals as much respect and empathy as possible.
The topic of zoos is a hard one: it’s good to have zoos so people become more aware and don’t want to harm animals, but at the same time it’s vital to also keep the animal’s best in mind.

I think helping animals is great but I dont like the concept of zoos as *to display them for the public*. Animals can co-exist with people but this depends on the species too. Animals dont like the presence of humans all of the time. We can talk this for granted, and be surprised that the animal’s instincts work and they could attack us.

I think it is great that people care for animals, if they know what they are doing (eg biologists, scientific people) but also animals need their privacy, and remember we are different from them. We can make friends with them, but we need to keep our distance too.

For instance, unlike others such as David Attenborough who just observe the animals in their natural habitat without any interference, Steve always threw himself into the action to get a direct reaction from the animals. Indeed, there are many examples of this where he’ll jump on crocs, grab snakes or prod the animals sticks.

In fact, there is even speculation about what exactly he was doing that provoked the attack from the Sting Ray, which apparently aren’t normally agressive. The current theory I’ve heard is that the Sting Ray must have felt cornered by Steve on one side and the camerman on the other, who were just way too close, and so lashed out as a means to escape.