By Crikey Crocodile hunter is dead

[tribdog]

just caught the last 1 second of news cast got to learn more. Either he died or a big crocodile died. I liked the crocodile hunter, so don't want him to be dead, but if he is I hope a crocodile ate him.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed in a freak accident while filming a marine documentary, Australian state government sources say.


It is thought the television personality and naturalist died after a stingray's barbed tail pierced his chest while he was diving off Port Douglas, the Australian Associated Press reported.

AAP said the Queensland ambulance service received a call about 1pm (NZT) today and a emergency sevices helicoptor was rushed to Batt Reef off Port Douglas. [continued]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3786517a10,00.html

You pretty much had to figure that one day something like this would get him.

 

[Gelsamel Epsilon]

Sucks - Another Australian icon gone. That only leaves a few left with companies like Vegemite selling out.

 

[AO eye 5]

R.i.p

I liked the guy's enthusiasm through, very involved and somewhat childlike.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm completely amazed. He'd already survived so many close calls I figured he was indestructible.

 

[J77]

Rest in peace, mate

 

[neutrino]

Just saw the news on slashdot. I loved his croc/herp documentaries. :(

 

[devious_]

Noooo..

 

[POSITION_VECTOR]

farewell Mr. Irwin

Of all the dangerous animals this highly energetic and entertaining man has encountered...a freaking stingray...tragedy has no boundaries. We'll miss you Steve.

 

[hypatia]

Thats very sad news, I feel very sorry for his wife and children. What great adventure he had in his life. He will be greatly missed.

 

[Astronuc]

Very sad indeed, especially for Terri and the kids.

I'm with Ivan on this - he took risks, but then getting pierced in the chest by a sting ray barb is pretty usual. Apparently the barb pierced Irwin's heart! I've known people to get pierced in the limbs/extremities mostly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin#Death

 

[Reshma]

Very sad news indeed . I have been watching his documentaries for the past many years and I am a great admirer of him and his wife. It was amazing to see his dedication and enthusiasm for animals and wildlife conservation. It was shocking for me when I heard this tragic news. He will be greatly missed (atleast by me).

 

[tribdog]

It's sad, but honestly, did anyone think he would make it as long as he did? The guy was a nut and would grab just about anything if you dared him to.

 

[Chi Meson]

It reminds me of what they say about mountaineering:

"There are old climbers and there are bold climbers

But there are no old, bold climbers."

I too feel terrible for his wife and kid even though his death was what he lived for.

 

[Rach3]

The tragedy is all the worse when you've seen it coming...

 

[Mk]

Actually I was a bit sad to hear it. It was almost like I knew him I guess. Not to forget his two kids, and wife.

 

[Andy]

What a Legend.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I remember watching him on Animal Planet. It was a good show. Oh well, RIP Steve Irwin.

 

[Moonbear]

This is really sad. I had always hoped he actually had more safety precautions in place than we saw on camera...you know, make it look good for the TV, but you really have some guy with a tranquilizer gun as back-up just off camera. I also never really expected he'd get killed on the job; I figured he'd wind up losing an arm or leg at some point and be taken out of commission, but never really expected something bad enough to kill him would happen. Seeing his show on Animal Planet always showed not just his respect and compassion for animals, but for the staff at the zoo too. I'm sure he'll be greatly missed by all who knew him.

 

[JasonRox]

Rest in Peace.

Steve Irwin.

 

[Pythagorean]

what's really ironic is a stringray is like the least of his worries. The barb went through his heart, otherwise it would have just hurt a lot. Stingray's aren't a common way to die for any diver or rec swimmer. Bummer that it hit spot-on.

R.I.P. Steve Erwin

 

[Evo]

It's really sad, he will be missed.

 

[scott1]

Very sad it's kind of hard to belevie(kind of like how elvis di...went into hidding and faked his death..)

Lets give Terri and her kids free liftime premium memberships with ment...No PF adimn previlages. .

 

[tribdog]

He was filming a documentary titled "The Ocean's Deadliest Creatures."

 

[Monique]

And the incident was caught on film. This is a really tragic freak accident, everyones thoughts are with Steve's family.

 

[gravenewworld]

when you play with fire long enough you get burned.

 

[tribdog]

The guy on CNN is being such a jerk. I'm a callous individual, but I would never say anything bad to irwin's family and friends. Anderson Cooper is interviewing irwin's best friend and has no tact.

 

[Astronuc]

I read a Yahoo article that mentioned the incident was caught on video tape, including the part where Irwin is pulling the barb out of his chest.

Irwin apparently swam/passed over the top of the sting ray, which prompted a defensive response from the ray - it's tail went up and it barbed him.

When people get stung by sting rays, it's usually because they step on them while wading in water, and the ray whips up its tail and catches people in the foot or leg.

If he deliberately swam over the ray, he was courting danger.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is sad. Irwin did a lot of good for conservation.

I expected that Irwin and others like him would eventually make a mistake and get themselves killed. And as rare as it is, something like this stingray strike makes the most sense really. Irwin was an expert at crocs and poisonous snakes. When pushing the edge with animals not within his domain of expertise, he was most vulnerable.

 

[Astronuc]

One of his friends and colleagues mentioned that they thought that if he was killed on the job, it would likely be in the ocean. On land Steve was agile, quick-thinking and experienced, but in the water, it's more complicated. Things can happen unexpectedly and without warning. There are special outfits of thin wire mesh or kevlar that can be warn by divers, but they are not too common, usually only used if diving with sharks. I still can't believe he swam over the top of the ray, or allowed it to swim underneath - that is just asking for it - which is apparently what happened.

I used to find stingrays in the water around Galveston, but mostly small ones about the size of one's arm. One just treats them with respect and exercise caution. Same goes for sharks.

Marine experts say stingrays can deliver horrific, agonizing injuries from the toxin-laden barbs, which can measure up to 20 cm (8 in) in length and cause injuries like a knife or bayonet.

"It's not the going in that causes the damage, it's the coming out where those deep serrations kind of pull on the flesh, and you end up with a very jagged tear which is quite a pronounced injury," said Dr Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/people_nm/australia_irwin_dc_12 - Reuters on Yahoo

 

[honestrosewater]

I'm trying to understand why he draws so much criticism about risk-taking while other people who are trained to do otherwise dangerous jobs (police officers, firefighters, pilots, astronauts, people working in biosafety labs, herpetologists working with the same exact animals as Steve) are respected for doing a job that they think needs to be done and benefits others. I suppose it might be that people think he took extra risks in order to make his work entertaining, but that's exactly what his job was. He wasn't trying to get herpetologists to care about reptiles. He was trying to reach the people who didn't already care about -- and might otherwise have killed -- the animals that he was working to protect.

I guess it's to be expected that a lot of people think what he was doing was especially dangerous and exciting. It just makes me sad to see him and his work go unappreciated. He succeeded in changing my view and knowledge of animals.

Has anyone ever heard specific criticisms of his safety practices from people who are qualified to make them?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The only real criticism that I have heard was when he hung his kid in front of a croc. Beyond that, I expected that the risks would become greater as a function of the desire for ratings.

Irwin seemed to me like a true conservationist and he was probably a great guy. Still, you never know about these guys and the tactics used for ratings. Marty Stouffer did a series for years called "Wild America". At one point his crew rebelled and went public with all sorts of stories. Allegedly, for example, a deer found dead with its head stuck in a tree trunk was alive until placed there by Stouffer. It was made to look like a natural event, but the crew claimed that Stouffer killed the deer for a good shot. There were many similar claims but I don't know how many turned out to be true. Still, since then I have been suspicious of TV conservationists.

A buddy of mine made an interesting comment. He wouldn't allow his kids to watch Irwin. He doesn't want his kids thinking that one can approach wild animals at will.

 

[Astronuc]

Irwin had a certain flambouyance, and that always attracts criticism. There are many other herpatologists who work quietly out of the limelight, especially those who collect snake venom for anti-venom development.

Irwin was criticised for harrassing animals in Antarctica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin#Controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin

 

[brewnog]

Ok, it's been over a day.


It seems he'd used lots of sun cream that day, but it hadn't been enough to protect him from the harmful rays.

 

[Quadruple Bypass]

what would have happened had he not pulled out the barb from his heart? would it have been the same, or would he have died from the poison in the barb?

 

[dmoravec]

i don't think the report is out how he died yet. its assumed to be a combination of the puncture and the poison... but if it was just the puncture and he had decided to keep the barb in he still probably would have died. howstuffworks.com has an article about stingray poison.

 

[Sisyphus]

He used to be somewhat of a hero to me in my early teens. RIP =\

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Alright, after watching all of the personal tributes I'm convinved: He was a really great guy! Good, now I feel bad.

 

[Moonbear]

Alright, after watching all of the personal tributes I'm convinved: He was a really great guy! Good, now I feel bad.

They even had a show on addressing the baby issue, and now I don't even think that was as bad as the media made it out to be at the time. From a different camera angle, you could see that Steve was always between the croc and the baby, and there were about a dozen other people in that pen should anything at all go wrong.

And, in an interview, his wife Terri pointed out that when most people come home with a new baby, they immediately see how the family dog will react, but they aren't a normal family with just a dog in the backyard, they have crocs in their backyard. They weren't going to wait until the baby was old enough to wander unknowingly into a croc pen to start introducing him to crocs and teaching him to be safe around them. It starts to make more sense when you think about it that way.

I don't think his efforts to make stingrays more popular worked though.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I don't think his efforts to make stingrays more popular worked though.

True! Now there are probably several orders of magnitude more people afraid of rays than last week.

One thing that as a long time beach goer I never knew is to pull out the spike. With those nasty looking barbs, that may not have been my first thought. I would be worried about doing more damage.

Incidently, I have a cousin who got hit by a ray while surfing. It got him in the leg and really messed him up for a good while. That toxin is nasty stuff.

 

[Rach3]

They weren't going to wait until the baby was old enough to wander unknowingly into a croc pen to start introducing him to crocs and teaching him to be safe around them. It starts to make more sense when you think about it that way.

How do you teach a baby to be "safe around crocodiles"? Does it involve martial arts?

 

[Evo]

How do you teach a baby to be "safe around crocodiles"? Does it involve martial arts?

I guess the same way you teach it to be safe around a rottweiler.

 

[hypatia]

How do you teach a baby to be "safe around crocodiles"? Does it involve martial arts?

It might, Steve was quite good in martial arts, Gaidojutsu.

 

[Moonbear]

I suppose you'd teach a baby about crocs similar to the way you'd teach them about livestock if you lived on a farm. First, they need to be familiar enough with the animal not to do anything sudden or awkward to spook it. And, constantly teach the kid respect for the animal's natural behaviors. I think kids are also less tempted to venture in on their own out of sheer curiosity if you take them to an animal with you and when you know it is safer to be near them (like when they are already full) so they can satisfy their curiosity without needing to sneak in without you.

 

[Gokul43201]

How do you teach a baby to be "safe around crocodiles"?

It's like teaching a baby to be safe around cryogenic liquids, if you've got a lot of cryogenic liquids at home.

 

[Astronuc]

I suppose you'd teach a baby about crocs similar to the way you'd teach them about livestock if you lived on a farm. First, they need to be familiar enough with the animal not to do anything sudden or awkward to spook it. And, constantly teach the kid respect for the animal's natural behaviors. I think kids are also less tempted to venture in on their own out of sheer curiosity if you take them to an animal with you and when you know it is safer to be near them (like when they are already full) so they can satisfy their curiosity without needing to sneak in without you.

But a baby? I think that was a nutty stunt, and I would have to question his judgement. That is no place to carry a baby.

No one in there right mind would would up to a bear in a national park with a baby in there arms so the baby could 'get the experience' with nature. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of idiots putting themselves (and others) at risk approaching wild animals, even after being repeatedly warned not to do so. Once in a while, some people are seriously injured or killed.

 

[chroot]

I don't really think infants have the capacity to be taught about the behaviors of crocodiles.

- Warren

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It is said that the vikings threw their babies in the water and were left sink or swim.

It could have been worse.

 

[LeBrad]

But a baby? I think that was a nutty stunt, and I would have to question his judgement. That is no place to carry a baby.

No one in there right mind would would up to a bear in a national park with a baby in there arms so the baby could 'get the experience' with nature. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of idiots putting themselves (and others) at risk approaching wild animals, even after being repeatedly warned not to do so. Once in a while, some people are seriously injured or killed.

I love how all of a sudden everybody except for Steve is an expert in crocodile safety. It's like the math guy who turned down the Fields Medal. The only person qualified to judge the safety of the baby was Steve. And after seeing all the stuff about him and his family and how much his kids meant to him, I will never believe he would have done anything to put his baby in any danger.

 

[franznietzsche]

I love how all of a sudden everybody except for Steve is an expert in crocodile safety. It's like the math guy who turned down the Nobel prize. The only person qualified to judge the safety of the baby was Steve. And after seeing all the stuff about him and his family and how much his kids meant to him, I will never believe he would have done anything to put his baby in any danger.

Spot on .