Bob Irwin - The Last Crocodile Hunter

First published in 2016

Copyright Bob Irwin and Amanda French 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone:(61 2) 8425 0100

Email:

Web:www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 76029 237 9

eISBN 978 1 95253 504 8

Front cover photo: Amanda French

Inset photo: Irwin family photo

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

For Lyn and Steve

Contents

Below is a letter from Steve to Lyn and me that he wrote a long time ago. Ive lost a lot of precious memorabilia along my journey, and have very few photographs of Steve and our family to reflect on, so I particularly treasure this.

Envelope inscription: Please be happy to know that your strength and wisdom has been passed on.

Dear Mum & Dad,

Probably one of the most unfortunate things in a blokes life is that it takes over 30 years to realise how essential you have been to build my character, my ethics and, most importantly, my HAPPINESS.

At 32, I am finally starting to figure it out. In good times and in bad, you were there. Your strength and endurance to raise me will not go unrewarded. My love for you is my strength!

For the rest of my life I will reflect on the unbelievably GREAT times weve shared and will continue to share. Youre my best friends!

Thank you,

Steve

My dad, just the legend of the universe. When I was the tiniest

little kid, Id look up to my dad and he was larger than life;

he was just this action hero. He was everything I wanted to be.

And all Ive done in my life is follow in his footsteps,

mimic him and try to be him. And nowadays, I just try to

make him proud, mate.

Steve Irwin, from interview with Andrew Denton on Enough Rope, ABC TV

Certainly the proudest feeling Ive had about building the zoo was giving Steve an outlet to harness some of his energy. Because in a very short period of time he managed to inspire millions of people around the world about nature conservation, using one animal that wasnt all that easy to fall in love withthe crocodile, and yet crocodiles are incredible animals that date back to over 80 million years ago when there were no humans on this planet.

I cant imagine having lived a life without wildlife or having had the opportunity to connect so frequently with our natural world. To me, it doesnt matter how often I see a black-headed python, or a crocodile, or whatever animal it may be, I always get excited. To understand how the bush has taught me so much, you have to realise that nature is communicating with us whichever way we turn. These days, in our busy lives, with such advancements in technology, we tend to forget the things that came so naturally to our ancestors. Weve become oblivious to the whispers that are there to be heard. We can no longer be guided by a starry night, or smell danger blowing in on the wind, or migrate with the seasons, or track unwoven paths beneath our feet. But the animals can. We are the only species that has ever lived on this planet that destroys its own environment. No other species devastates the home in which it lives.

When the script was written for nature, humans werent in the picture at all. We werent involved, we werent asked to be involved either, nature simply didnt require us to be part of it. But unfortunately, since our short time on this planet, weve become the most dominant species and now we impose our will upon every living thing out there. And until we get to the point where we start to ask the question whether we intend to be successful and sustainable in the long-term, then were going to always have a big problem.

For me, and for Steve, crocodiles were colossally misunderstood. Theyre an animal thats survived ice ages and some pretty catastrophic climatic changes over all these years, and theyre still doing well in our world today.

When it comes to animal intelligence, the unfortunate thing is that we tend to look at it from a human perspective. We say that an animal is intelligent only when its actions make sense to us. And yet it is very hard to judge the difference between instinct and intelligence. Steve, because of his inquisitive nature, was able to get a better understanding of animals. He had an animal instinct right from an early age. He was never satisfied with learning about a species from a book or a scientific paper; no, Steve had to be out there amongst it observing the natural world around him.

Through Steves passion and enthusiasm he was able to shine a spotlight on our natural world that wasnt there before he came along. He had a unique way of connecting people with wildlife that was contagious. His success in the end was not something that I can necessarily take credit for either. But I guess, getting him into it as a kid and encouraging his interests was something that I was able to do as his dad. While I may have been the teacher in the early years, I certainly became the pupil later on. In Steve I found a likeminded friend with whom I could share my passion. Because it was Steve in the end who was able to teach me that passion alone has the ability to ignite a spark in others and send a warm glow over the rest of the worldand thats exactly what he achieved. And yet it started out reasonably unsophisticated, getting muddy catching crocodiles in the mangroves and swamps of Far North Queensland. To have had the opportunity to venture to some of the most remote areas of Queensland over the years, and to be able to experience that with someone like Steve, who had the same interests and understanding that I have, thats the part that I treasured most of all. Thats called passion, and if you ever lose that then you might as well get out of the wildlife industry all together, go and do something else. Because it doesnt matter what you encounter out there, if you dont get excited about that experience and feel something profound for that animal, then its probably time for a career change.

Im constantly reminded of his boundless energy, infectious humour and unrestrained passion for wildlife. When the world lost Steve, the animals lost the best friend that they ever had, and so did I. But hes still here, still with me, and Im able to gain strength from him, and harness the same passion and drive that we had together. What he stood for and what he was able to achieve means just as much now as when he was here in this physical world. There are so many people who have been inspired by, and are still being inspired by, Steve Irwin. Thats something that makes me feel really, really proud.

I only hope that sharing some of these stories reminds people of his enormous legacy, teaching not only the importance of reconnecting with our environment, but to be passionate in doing so. We can no longer live in isolation from the environment that nourishes us so well. We are interconnected with every single strand of it. Our own survival depends on its very health.