Irwin: Life, Love, & Legacy
- Vinny Demme
- May 22, 2021
- 10 min read
"I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save
a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake,
mate, I will save it."
- Steve Irwin -
When people think of Australia, one thought is especially prevalent: everything there wants to kill me or, at the very least, can kill me. With a wide variety of snakes, both venomous and harmless, spiders, kickboxing kangaroos, and, of course, the modern-day dinosaur known as the crocodile, Australia’s wilderness is not for the faint of heart. But then again, even in the most dangerous conditions and positions of constant collision, there was always a person who, let’s be honest here, was off their rocker enough to brave it and educate the rest of us worrywarts in the process.
He was a person who had so much energy and passion for his daily work that one cup of coffee would, in his own words, make the top of his head blow off; the same passion still flows through the veins of his children, wife, and the millions around the world who adore and rewatch his most exciting adventures. When it comes to wildlife conservation, nobody has been able to bring as much awareness to people of all ages as he has. And this person, of course, is none other than the “Crocodile Hunter” himself, Steve Irwin.
A big influence from a young age
Steve Robert Irwin was born to parents Bob, a plumber, and Lyn, a nurse, on February 22, 1962, in Essendon, Australia--a small suburb in northern Melbourne, Australia. It is common for children to become very interested in whatever it is that their parents are doing (I think Robert and Bindi Irwin are great examples), and while the world can use all the plumbers and nurses it can get, I think the world can agree that we are fortunate that Steve’s parents soon turned their passion for nature and wildlife into a career (1).
In the early 1970s, Steve and his family moved to Beerwah, Queensland, on the sunshine coast and opened the Beerwah Reptile Park (2). Bob had quite the interest in herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles, and Lyn began work as a wildlife rehabilitator (4). The two-acre reptile park was home to lace monitors, large lizards known for standing on their hind legs, kangaroos guests could often find in homemade pouches created by Lyn, tiger snakes, and, of course, crocodiles (3).
Suppose you love Steve for his animal catching abilities (a.k.a, catching anything in his path, picking it up, and admiring it for being such a “beaut”). In that case, you’d be happy to know that his energetic behavior, attitude, and admiration for wildlife was not just for show; it’s pretty much as old as Steve himself. Not only did he catch his very first Common Brown, a venomous Australian snake, at only six years old, but he would also often find ways to help animals on his way to school, one time going as far as to make his mother stop the car so he could save a lizard stranded on the road--a rescue mission that incidentally made him late for school (1).
As the reptile park grew, Steve could often be found helping out at the park in essentially every way he could. Enclosure conditions needed to be maintained? He had it covered. Animals needed checkups? He was your guy. Animals needed to be fed? You already know who was going to be there with platters of food. While he was gaining experience at the zoo, he would also often embark on journeys into the Australian outback with his father to help rehabilitate animals that the zoo brought in, and by the time he was nine, he already had a good grasp on crocodile hunting (4).
As part of the East Coast Crocodile Management Program, Steve and his father helped capture crocodiles in heavily-populated areas in order to send them to wildlife sanctuaries, less populated areas, and even the Beerwah Reptile Park. Crocodiles were being hunted (in the bad way) and this was the pair’s best bet to ensure both that animals were saved and hunting and poaching levels went down. This is also where Steve developed his signature move--jumping on top of a crocodile while it was in the water and wrestling with it (a).
Still, before he became known as the crocodile hunter, he became known as one of the best “croc catchers” in Australia; this was due to the experience he gained working for the Crocodile Management Program in the 1980s, a position that often found him isolated in the Australian bush, the driest and most barren regions of the Australian outback. Soon, the family park was renamed the “Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park,” and Steve began working with Wes Mannon, his best friend, every day. By the time he was 29, Steve’s experience and passion led him to take over the managerial responsibilities of the park (1).
love at first sight
Across the pond in Eugene, Oregon, America, a young girl named Terri Raines had somewhat of a similar upbringing to Steve. While she wasn’t wrestling alligators day-by-day, her father was a long-haul trucker who would bring home injured animals he found on interstates--animals Terri would nurse back to health. This love for animal rehabilitation led to Terri creating “Cougar Country,” an organization that works to nurse predatory animals, like cougars, bears, and bobcats (oh my!) back to health when she was just 20 years old (5).
In 1991, while Steve was just beginning his new managerial position, Terri also found herself in Australia visiting the Great Barrier Reef on vacation. When she found herself at the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, her first impression was, what some would call, a little harsh. “I said [to her friend who asked about visiting the park], ‘It looks kind of crummy,” Terri said in an interview with Now To Love, “There’ll probably just be a couple of snakes in jars and I’ll be depressed” (6). However, she and her friend decided to visit, and Terri recalls that she was rather impressed with the park, and, of course, very impressed with the man putting on a crocodile show.
“The fact that he was so humble and loving towards these animals was so attractive to me and he looked like a rock in those shorts… All afternoon we just talked!” Terri recalled (6). Terri explained that during the conversation, she did her best to ask if Steve had a girlfriend--a question Steve answered by asking Terri if she would like to meet his girlfriend. Immediately heartbroken, Terri agreed only to be surprised by one of the most Steve Irwin things possible. “This is me girlfriend, Suey,” he said during the introduction, Suey being his dog (6).
After spending time with Steve at the zoo and a day that saw both of them “sweaty and dirty and covered with leaves and bark” (per Terri’s own words), Steve turned to her and asked, “What do you reckon? Do you want to get married?” and Terri and Steve were married on June 4, 1992 (6, 7). Steve and Terri had gone from the admiration of short shorts to marriage in the span of eight months, so it was only a matter of time before Terri was invited to join in on Steve’s favorite pastime of jumping atop and wrestling alligators--an invite that only happened a short amount of time after their marriage during a time most newlywed couples would be on their honeymoon.
While the Irwins were planning their honeymoon, they received a phone call that “some bad guy was going to shoot a crocodile,” Terri stated on the TV show The Talk (8). “[We were asked],” Terri continued, “would we ever want to come and try to save it and maybe film it as well… So we abandoned the honeymoon, went straight back to Australia” and began filming the many animal rescue adventures they would embark on during their time together (8). Soon, the documentaries received national attention, and the hit TV show, The Crocodile Hunter, was born. Over 300 episodes of The Crocodile Hunter were filmed, each one following the wild adventures of Steve and Terri as they worked to help raise awareness for not only crocodiles but all wildlife in Australia and around the world (8).
Steve became a household name worldwide, but Terri explains that that never stopped him from being who he truly was. “He always drove an old ute,” Terri explained (an “old ute” meaning an old car). “He always loved going bush, [meaning to live off the land] I loved that about him. He was never pretentious, never big-noted himself, and we did put everything we made for wildlife back into conservation” (6).
loves of his life
On a rainy Australian day, perhaps after wrestling with a crocodile and getting bitten by a snake in the course of an hour, Steve ran into Terri exclaiming in the most enthusiastic and characteristically excited way possible that the couple had to have children in order to ensure the zoo, now renamed Australia Zoo, would be left in good hands. “You do know,” Terri told him, “just because you have children doesn’t mean they’ll like or do what you do…” a rather wise thing to say to any parent that is very passionate about their work (6).
Imagine if, at that moment, Terri could’ve been shown a clip of the Oprah Winfrey Show in which a three-year-old girl named Bindi sat with her father while comfortably holding a snake and telling Oprah that it was her favorite animal. Well, I don’t think it would have surprised her at all honestly; Steve had such a contagious love and passion for all animals around him that it’d only make sense (9).
“Oh yeah,” she’d probably say at that moment, “That is totally our kid.”
Bindi Irwin was born on July 24, 1998, in Buderim, Queensland. Named after one of Steve’s favorite crocodiles and meaning “young girl” in the Aboriginal language, she and Steve were simply inseparable. “When I dwell on her for too long, I start bawling my eyes out,” Steve explained in an interview. “When I go into the field mate, I’ve got a photo… of me and my daughter and I can just sit there and start crying just lookin’ at her. Who would’ve thought, someone as ugly as me could bring into the world something so beautiful--such a treasure” (11).
When asked about his parenting techniques, Steve stated that it was rather simple--treat Bindi how he would want to be treated and, essentially, give her the world. The Irwins also explained that while their lives had been broadcasted on television for a while, it was important for them to ensure that their private life stayed private (11). Growing up, Bindi was often seen spending time with her mother and father at the zoo, playing with and caring for the animals, naming many of them, and even telling people that she would be running the zoo someday.
Soon, she became an older sister. On December 1, 2003, Robert Irwin was born, the news of Terri’s pregnancy making Steve exclaim with a traditional “woohoo!” (this was right after he came across Terri eating ice cream and pickles, foreshadowing the news). Steve then happily shared the news with an audience filling the world-famous crocoseum to see the traditional crocodile show. Steve would actually end up facing some controversy during a croc show. While he was doing things in the traditional fashion, one show featured a guest--four week old Robert Irwin who was held by Steve while feeding the crocodile.
But let’s get real here… if you had to choose someone to hold a baby while feeding a crocodile, would you really trust anybody else?
port Douglas & passing the football
On September 20, 2006, the world-famous crocoseum, a stadium that saw Steve Irwin live out his passions of educating and caring for animals, held a memorial service for the man who worked so hard to bring the Australia Zoo to where it was in that moment and even where it is today. Just before this point, Steve had told Terri that he was becoming more interested in a life without filming--a life where he could begin focusing on his family. When one lives life as wild as Steve did, one thinks that their time might be cut short due to all the danger around them every single day. In fact, this was something he told Terri and this was the reason he wanted to discontinue filming.
When leaving Port Douglas after a visit, Steve stayed behind to film a documentary called “Ocean’s Deadliest.” “I remember him waving goodbye,” Terri stated, “That was the last time we saw him.” Steve came across a short-tailed stingray in the shallow waters, and his life ended only moments later at age 44 when the ray attacked Steve with its stinger--an attack that is actually so rare that it was only the third attack by a short-tailed stingray on a human ever recorded (12). After his death, a memorial service was held during which Bindi told the crocoseum that her daddy was her hero and that she “[wanted] to help endangered wildlife just like he did” (13).
In a world where everything Steve Irwin stood for--wildlife conservation, habitat conservation, environmental protection, and so much more--is in danger, it’s nothing short of absolutely extraordinary that his message is still being spread by his children and Terri through their current work at Australia Zoo, their social media presence inspiring people of all ages to be interested in endangered wildlife and conservation, and the very popular show “Crikey! It’s the Irwins” going strong with no end in sight.
“Is there anything in this world that would want to make me give away what I’m doing now… yes. Yes, there is. When my children can take the football that I call wildlife conservation and run it up. When they’re ready to run up our mission, I will gladly step aside. And I guarantee you that it’ll be the proudest moment of my life.”
We all know how proud Steve is when he looks down on his children and sees them doing what he and now they love most. But don’t get me wrong; there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s proud of you too for being interested in learning about the environment and wildlife conservation. So let’s keep going and make sure many more are inspired to live for our Earth’s most precious creatures.
Thank you for reading… And thank you, Steve.
a) While many criticize Steve Irwin for "wrestling" with the crocodiles, it is important to note that many of these instances took place in order to put trackers on the animals--trackers used to ensure their health/surivival
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Links & Sources
Wildlife Images & Irwin Family Connections | Wildlife Images
Terri Irwin reflects on her relationship with Steve Irwin 12 years after his death | Now To Love
Terri irwin reveals sweet reason her and steve canceled their honeymoon | startsat60
Steve Irwin’s Daughter Brings Her Baby Python on ‘The Oprah Show’ | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN
Steve Irwin hears the news about his 2nd child | frighttrain260 | YouTube
Steve Irwin: the tragic story behind the death of the Aussie hero | Who
Every opening to Crikey It’s the Irwins | Discovery Channel
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