You're Wrong About - The Crocodile Hunter with Brianna Bowman

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Crikey! How does a man decide to wrangle giant reptiles for a living? For this episode, ocean correspondent Brianna Bowman shares the life story of Australian icon Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter who captured the slithering hearts of kids in the late 90s and 2000s. Starting with his lizard- and snake-laden childhood and his early work with “problem crocodiles,” Brianna takes Sarah through Steve’s romance with Terri, the equally animal-obsessed love of his life; their career together at the Australia Zoo and rise to TV stardom; and the shocking news of his improbable death. Digressions include sea anemones, Jurassic Park, and H2O: Just Add Water. More Brianna Bowman: http://www.briannabowman.com https://www.patreon.com/c/rewildingkeiko Produced + edited by Miranda Zickler: http://www.linktr.ee/mirandatheswampmonster Brianna recommends: Steve's papers that he coauthored: ⁠pone.0000949 1..5⁠  and ⁠Estuarine crocodiles ride surface currents to facilitate long‐distance travel - Campbell - 2010 - Journal of Animal Ecology - Wiley Online Library⁠ Steve explaining the research to Conan and other things: ⁠Crocs...IN SPACE⁠ His allegedly last show at Australia Zoo: ⁠Steve Irwin’s very last show at Australia Zoo, before he passed away. : r/interestingasfuck⁠ Some great Crocodile Hunter clips: ⁠Steve’s Wildest Croc Encounters | The Crocodile Hunter | Animal Planet⁠ His captures for Read's research happen at 10:18 His memorial service: ⁠STEVE IRWIN MEMORIAL TRIBUTE⁠ More You're Wrong About: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Bonus Episodes on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Buy cute merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YWA on Instagram⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think we really missed out by not being marsupials. Okay, I'm going to start us off. I'm going to have a sip of tea. And then here's what we're going to do. I want to, at 12, check in about how we're doing in terms of pacing. You know me. It's like we worked together before. It's like I have, you know, unexpectedly dropped a three-part series on you before.

And we needed a three-part series, but Steve Irwin is a human-sized man, and so it must be shorter. Yeah, I mean, I think I could, well, maybe not three parts. I probably could make it two parts, but I'm not going to. I promised you. But you can't. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to leave all this in so people see what I have to deal with. Do you see? You're basically peaked from 30. This is like, you know what this is? This is karma because I used to freelance as you know when we were in our 20s. And I had editors being like, okay, I need this many words. And I was like, I can make it really long. And they're like, no. And now I'm the person who has to keep saying, no, it must be shorter. And I never thought that would happen to me. It's like parenthood, but editorially. Yeah.

Okay. Well, anyway, Brianna. Sarah. You are our ocean correspondent. And yet today we are going on land. We are. It's a little confusing. We're going to put on our khakis.

We're going to return to perhaps our childhoods. Absolutely. And we are going to talk about something. I think people have been asking for for a long time, and that is the crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin. Steve Irwin, the man, the myth, the legend. Yeah. I don't know if he's really a myth, but he certainly is a legend to many people. You know, yeah, what's the difference?

I don't know, but definitely the legend. Yeah. And you talked to us at the start of this year about Kako. Mm-hmm. And here we are, I guess, for another biography of someone who a lot of us, bonded with in our childhoods, I want to say. And I'm talking about millennials here. Yeah, exactly. Brianna, first of all, two questions in brief. Who are you? And I know that's a big one. Yeah. And you can answer it however you want, truly. And B, for someone who, for example,

says I was born in October of 2006, who is Steve Irwin? Right. So I'm Brianna Bowman. I am currently a part-time host and reporter for my local NPR member station, KLCC, based in Eudine. You have the rom-com job of my dreams, and you are also, I will point out, much like Adrian Barbo in the Fog, a coastal radio gal. Yeah. What is that like generally to be talking about sort of a facet of the science world, which famously is having kind of a rough time with regards to people being proud to believe that science does not govern them in kind of a, you know, a pretty worrying way that has gotten more political

traction than it used to have. I think it's fair to say. And also like just the difficult thing of communicating fairly specialized knowledge to people when you only have like so much time to do it. What is that like for you? I do find myself struggling. I'm learning, you know, like I was primarily trained as a scientist and now I am learning on the fly on the job, how to be a job, how to be a journalist. Yeah, and scientists do not tend to be rewarded for brevity, I would say. No. And scientists would say journalism frequently miscommunicates or over-dramatizes or, like, clickbates, or like simplifies an idea or like makes little sound bites out of a complex interview in a way that like compromises the average person's ability to even try to understand

what's going on, to which I would say, yeah, that is absolutely true. Yes. I also kind of struggle with this idea of how much do we need to simplify all the time? Like, I think the interesting part are the details. And I get it. It's a, it's a news outlet. It's a news organization. And we need to be able to engage with the most people possible in terms of our audience and our listeners and our readers of our web articles. But yeah, sometimes I've kind of struggled with the idea of like having to simplify things because I am like, well, yeah, maybe for some people, that would be too much. And then for others, they would find that interesting. Like, not going into details sometimes is maybe losing an opportunity to engage with people. But I'm still learning. And I think that's honestly

the crux of a lot of discussion in the science communication field of, you know, how do we engage people and educate people without overwhelming them with information? Because it is a scientist's job to understand every little detail. Right. But how much does the average person actually need to know? And how much time are they going to dedicate? Because this is my thing, right? Where like here's an example where I just got to visit Gettysburg this year,

which is like really cool and amazing and great. Right. And the thing is like because I think it's probably even maybe a cliche at this point that Gettysburg is beautiful. But like the thing is that it's so beautiful. And it doesn't feel haunted at all. Oh, interesting. Something about that. And it's also been like, you know, painstakingly preserved to look the way it did at that time.

There's something. Anyway, it's like a very powerful experience is what I'm getting at. You know, I won't talk too long about it. But also they like show you this film and then the cyclorama, which I guess is a phenomenon of the late 19th century of like this giant circular painting that's supposed to give you an experience of like a period in history, sort of feel immersive. It's like pre-IMAX or something or like being inside a giant. zoetrope or pre-vr. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's like Gilded Age VR. But anyway, but they show this film and it's like very good. And they have Sam Waterston as Abraham Lincoln because I guess after Ken Burns, everyone's like, yep, he's Abraham Lincoln all right. And they read the Gettysburg Address, which is famously probably like the shortest important speech in American history. Like it's so short that you can like chisel it in its entirety onto like a piece of, you know, onto a monument in pretty large type. and they like cut it at a certain point. They like faded out and then faded back in like they had cut out a part of it, I assume.

I might be wrong, but it really sure sounded like that. Interesting. And I was like, I don't know. I feel like people should be expected to sit through the additional 20 seconds or whatever you're saving here. Like, why would you cut this of all things if that's what happened? So I think that like there's this sense that like we should make everything bite size because the American people are so stupid and impatient. that we won't sit through anything. And it's like, yes, kind of. Like, I can feel my attention span shrinking when I give in to my desire to consume, you know, the kind of like social media

stuff that I want. But also, that is an excuse, I think, that media companies use to try and make their products more and more addictive to try and increase screen time quarter by quarter in a very sinister attempt ultimately to milk us of more and more of our time every year until we spend every waking second looking at a screen or using technology of some kind. And it's not fair to blame a lazy people for the evil that corporations are doing to make us, I don't know, more addicted to this stuff on purpose. And I also think that like boring stuff can be really good and challenging someone to like think a little bit longer or like sit with something in order to think harder about it, like is worth

it. And if not everyone wants that, then that's okay. but of course that's not like a good approach capitalistically. Although interestingly, like the capitalist model in the United States today and media as in all things is to like execute a business model that doesn't have a chance of becoming profitable, suck it dry, and then abandon it after about seven years. I know. I never really understood that aspect of it.

It's kind of the same idea. Like I've never quite understood or I have misgivings about the idea of the intention of like going into buying a home with the intention of selling it again one day. Well, yeah, because it can get predatory pretty easily, I think. Right. What if you just, like, created the home you wanted and didn't care about whether or not someone like the next buyer? No, Brianna, we must always profit max each activity.

Have a hobby. Make it a business. Buying a home. Make it a business. Have a business. Make it a bigger business. This is the American way. Right.

Drop dead of a heart attack. at 60 years old after not enjoying any of it because you made it all a business. Having a baby, make it a business. Anyway, this is our state of the union. Yeah, it's just, that's where we're at. But I will, I will, I will bring this. What if you don't make it a business? What if you just live? What if you just sat in the hammock and read something and then you didn't tell anyone about it? Right. Well, actually, this is a great segue, I think, to some of my feelings. feelings about Steve Irwin. Tell me your feelings about Steve Irwin.

That's what we're all here for. That's what we're here for. I will, first, I'll say that, you know, you're saying how all these media companies, they have this sinister idea of like, they're going to try to figure out how to keep us on our phones and her screens 24-7. And I can tell you that in reading about and immersing myself in Crocodile Hunter media, ironically, on a screen, I get it. But I actually have felt more inspired to be like, you know what?

I need to like go outside and like try to identify the plants and animals and things around me that I see every day because that's probably what Steve Irwin would have done. And he would have been like. And the great state of Oregon that we should not build data centers in nor anywhere for the love of God. Yeah, for the love of God, please. But I, Steve Irwin was just like in a way, I know he had. obviously this very popular show that aired on a TV on a TV channel,

but he really, like his life was really about being outside and getting obviously very up close and personal with wildlife, which is part of the sort of nuance to him. We started to say that I think whenever people, you know, they read the title of a you're wrong about episode and they're like, oh no, what did so and so do? I love that person. And I'm not here to take away anybody's feelings about Steve Irwin. I've come away still loving Steve Irwin. I think I just have a little bit more of a nuanced idea of him.

Like he was a human being. Well, and you're approaching him as an adult, you know, and that maybe is inevitable, we hope. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, none of us are above critique. Like, there was things about his approach to his work that people certainly were critiquing. But I think generally you're going to leave this episode still loving Steve Irwin. And I think he still has a net positive on the world.

Thank you for reassuring people if they're afraid of that. Can I tell you my like, you're wrong about many version of Steve Irwin, which we will then spend the rest of the episode complicating and correcting. Okay. Yeah. Go for it. Okay. This is what I think I remember. In the early days of the show, we had a lot of reviews being like, I can't believe someone who doesn't even. know anything about it is talking. And it was like, well, it's the point to not know about it. Originally. And we like, you know, have grown a lot around that. But it's to be like, oh, this is what I kind of remember. And then how someone tell you the correct version, which usually

is pre-counter to the fossil version that you get through VH1 countdown shows and so on. Yeah. So, okay, so here's what I kind of remember is that I think there was a show on the Discovery Channel question mark called The Crocodile Hunter. And I believe that like the I don't know, the promos and like the, maybe like the ads and the theme music for it, there was some element of crocodile hunter. Is that right? Something like that. Yeah.

Don't make me look silly by saying I made that up by myself. But it was just like the show that was kind of like a phenomenon is I guess kind of an early reality show because I want to say it was on in like the late 90s into the 2000s, mental late 90s. Yes. Yeah. But for like quite a while. and then it was about this guy named Steve Irwin, who was Australian, and Americans love Australians because we love to do an Australian accent. Although we refuse to ever hire a real Australian to do the ads for Outback Steakhouse,

please for the love of all that is blossoming in onions. Why can't we just get any of the millions of Australians living in L.A. and winning all of the Oscars to do this job. I probably talked about this on my show before. It made me, I have had a vendetta against Outback Steakhouse since I was 10 years old because of this. And to say my investment in this, my dad grew up in New Zealand and subsequently Australia when he was a little bit older. And I grew up going to the Gold Coast to visit my grandparents, but it feels like several summers in a row when I was like a tween. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. But not since then. So I have these like tween age memories of it. Yeah. Oh, so if you were there as a tween, well, that was like right in the height of crocodile hunter. Here's what I remember. I remember annoying my relatives by listening to an album by Aqua that Barbie Girl was on, but like the whole album on like the family stereo. So whenever that was. But you don't have any memories of like Steve Irwin while you were in Australia at that time. Not that I can think of. I remember watching a lot of like, I mean, obviously it was, there was a lot of neighbors. happening. Oh my gosh, yeah. I gotta get back over there because it's been this whole millennium since I've been. And you have spent a lot of time in Australia and New Zealand as in your 20s

for various reasons. Some of them science related. Yeah, and I lived in Australia for a little over a year and a half. I was first in Brisbane. That was my first six months and then I actually went back to New Zealand for a bit. And then I went back to Australia and I was working in Central Queensland and living in a town called Blackwater. It was a very odd place for me to end up. This was all because of a relationship with my ex that I ended up there. He and a bunch of friends were working at a coal mine. So Blackwater's in the middle of coal country in Queensland.

You know what I love about this show is that there is someone listening who also ended up living in a coal mining town because of a relationship that is. now over, but probably a totally different coal mining town. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's coal and X's all over the place. This is true. And every town, well, maybe not coal in every town, but there's certainly X's every town. I was working as an environmental officer, an Enviro at the mine for a few months. I also worked as a Jillaroo for like a month. Jilloo is a cowgirl. And yeah, I mean, I had had amazing experiences there. It wasn't for me for the long term. but I really valued my time there.

And it was just interesting diving into the Steve Irwin stuff because I was like, oh, yeah, I spent a lot of time in places that I know he and his team were in catching crocodiles. I mean, not in Central Queensland, but in far north Queensland. And just being in that environment and the kind of wildlife he would encounter and, you know, just some of the wildlife encounters I had, It just brought back a lot of memories, actually, of that time, which was actually kind of unexpected. And I think the other part of it, too, that I was not expecting to relate to so much was the fact that Terry Irwin, his wife, I don't know if you know this or remember this, Sarah, but she is from Eugene, Oregon.

No, I didn't know that. Yeah. No, and I love finding out someone is from Oregon. This is amazing. She's from Oregon. And she grew up in Eugene and I just found myself relating to this story of her like coming to Australia and what it was like being a girl from Oregon in Australia. And yeah, there's a nice little tie in there.

So yeah, I guess all that's to say is that I think that hopefully less because of the way this show is as because of the way media is generally. I do, I think you're totally right that people have that fear that whenever we talk about someone on the show, it's like, oh, God, what do they do? And I think often what we're trying to do is to talk about someone and all of their complexity the best we can. And often we have the need to do that with someone gets flattened into kind of a media character, which can happen not because you did something bad, because you had a lot of eyeballs on you and became like a character in the bigger culture for a while, which means by definition, like if you are an icon, an icon is like something that's easy to recognize that becomes kind of simplified like a symbol or a hieroglyph, I think. And so with Steve Irwin, the idea with him was that he just was like, Americans think of Australians as being a little bit brainless, which I think is a bit rich coming from us, let's be honest. But we underestimate people because of the accent.

It's the same thing with Southerners. And it's nice when no one can see you coming and when people underestimate you because of the way you talk in that sense. And a lot of other accents and dialects and of course the way that race and code switching play into all this too. Right. not to get too deep. But so I think we all kind of saw Steve everyone is like this happy go lucky guy who jumped around playing with large predators. And of course he was called the crocodile hunter. And there was a South Park parody of him as there is of every truly significant character of the 90s pretty much. You know, him being someone I think who just like to go bother large animals, but who also like was this very

beloved, very wholesome character who people like to watch. And I think was someone who people like, Felt was part of a new wave of a new kind of TV, but that didn't make you stressed about where all this was going. And then that he died to me very unexpectedly and tragically and also in a way that is, I think, extremely unusual and hard to foresee in 2006 and not to be so millennial that we make everything about ourselves. But I will point out that that was like the first week or so of college for both of us. And I really associate that with that like transition into adulthood. Yeah. No, absolutely. That was kind of unimaginable, you know, because he just seemed like very in his element

doing this kind of thing all the time. Right. And then he died after an encounter with a stingray. Yeah. And it really, and I remember feeling very like, I mean, obviously shocked and then emotional about it because my family loved Steve Irwin. Oh, I didn't know this about you guys. Yeah, I think I got one of his DVDs for Christmas one year from my brother.

And what was the show like? Because I don't think I ever watched it all that much. It was more like sort of when I was channel surfing kind of a thing. Yeah, sometimes he's in Australia and he's maybe relocating a crocodile. So that was a big part of his career, actually, before he started the show. He was a full-time crocodile catcher for the Queensland Department. But of course, for American TV, we have. to imply that he's killing them or else no one would be interested as I assume the meeting

about this title, right? Well, I think it's more exciting to refer to him as the crocodile hunter versus like catcher. It just sounds more dramatic. But I think also people tend to give the caveat of like, well, hunter can also mean you're just looking for something. It doesn't mean you have to kill it. That's true. Right.

Like I'm hunting for my glasses. Right. The glasses hunter. Yeah. Yeah. However, I do think. that that is like revealing of what we we think people want. It never to me gave the impression that he was safely relocating these animals. I mean, I didn't think that he was killing them either,

but I understood that it meant he was like looking for them and then he would find them and be like, hey, you know, but I didn't realize that there was that we were helping the crocodiles. Why did he have to move them? How did they get where they weren't supposed to be? Are they just doing that a lot? So maybe it helps if I like kind of take a step back in his life. If we like start the beginning, a very good place to start. And, yeah, just like in Dune. So he was born in 1962. He has two sisters and his parents, Bob and Lynn.

He was very close with his parents growing up. He grew up first in Victoria near Melbourne. And he was born on his mother's birthday. And he was always very, very close with his mom. And I think that kind of intensified, you know, how close they were was the fact that they shared a birthday. And his sisters, I don't know. He like, there's hardly any mention of them. They did come to work at the zoo later on.

But otherwise, I don't really find much about them mentioned anywhere. And then he and his parents were really passionate about reptiles specifically, like in the sense that they really, I guess at the time, liked to collect them and keep them as pets sort of thing. This was just in their own. home. They were, I believe, also rehabilitating wildlife as well. Steve Irwin talks about how his mom was always nursing kangaroo joys. And that is quite a frequent thing in Australia is wildlife like kangaroos or wombats, marsupials that are hit by a car. And the Joey survives if there is a Joey. Oh, yeah. And so they actually there is encouragement if you hit and kill a kangaroo to check the

pouch and make sure that there's not a Joey in there. God, does this happen to people like on the way to weddings and stuff? You know, you're just minding your business. And then are kangaroo like deer in this way? Yes. Man, I didn't know that. That is my analogy. I don't. Well, why would I think I would know that. I wasn't driving when I was 11 years old, nor are there probably that many kangaroos on the Gold Coast and the part where all the slot machines are. Yes, exactly. Yeah. No, it depends on where you are. You can certainly visit Australia and never see a wild kangaroo. Right. Like, if you're in New York you're not going to hit a deer. If you're in upstate New York, deer hit you. Yeah. But I, yeah, they are very frequent. Wait, but if you hit a kangaroo and you kill it and there's a Joey inside,

like, what do you do then? Do you like wrap it up in a towel and take it to a wildlife rehab center? Is there a plan? Yeah. I think generally that's the idea. And I believe you can also get certified to be like a wildlife rehabilitator in your own home too, like through the government, you know, relevant government departments. You can run a Joey clinic. Yeah. I do remember looking into this when I was in Australia. I was like, oh, that would be, that would be cool. I would love to do that. And that's basically what Yeah, Steve Irwin's mom, Lynn Irwin, was doing. She was sort of nursing animals back to health.

And so it was just a family that was very passionate about wildlife. What kind of animals does he grow up with around the house? Well, so a good story about this is Steve received his first reptile when he was six years old, like on his birthday. It was like a birthday gift. That's nice. And you might think like, oh, his parents gave him. like the Australian equivalent of a garter snake or something like that. But no, he got, in true Steve Rowan fashion, he got a 12-foot scrub python.

Like, that was what his parents gave him. But they had the sense to be like, you can't play with him. He is yours, but you can't play with him because he will probably actually eat you because you're a six-year-old boy and you're actually smaller than him. The ratio of snake to owner in pounds has to be really high. Yeah, right. And to be clear, like, I love snakes and I think they're really cool. And I do too. Nothing against the Irwin's. It's because it's, these are animals that like you need to contain effectively and like they definitely aren't harmless. And all that is to say that we're probably

going to be spending a lot of time with this theme of like responsible interaction with potentially dangerous animals being about respecting who and what they are and also not over identifying with them. And I feel I have a sense that this is going to be a tale of someone doing that pretty successfully. Yeah. You're right on it, Sarah. That is basically the theme of kind of the nuance of Steve Irwin's life. Because, yeah, when I was reading about this, I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, I'm trying to think of, like, if I met some people that were keeping a bunch of reptiles in their own home and other animals, there would be a part of me that'd be like, is this a good idea? Like, are you guys, Do you guys actually know what you're doing?

And I do think the Irwin's, I think they did have a healthy respect for the predators that they took care of. So like another story that I guess is emblematic of this is when Steve Irwin was seven years old, he and his dad went out in northern Victoria and they were just looking for snakes, as you do. And it was a little confusing to me as whether they were looking for snakes to collect or just, to look at or whatever it was, but Steve was a little kid. He said he was playing war. He's like stalking his dad and like pretending a stick as a gun or whatever. And he's just being a little boy. And he stepped on a snake and he pinned it down with his foot. And he was so excited he called his dad over.

And he's like, look, dad, I caught a snake. And the dad looks at the snake and he like pushes Steve like really abruptly. Oh boy. Steve describes it as like he like knocked him back with his forearm and also yells, you bloody idiot, which is like, oh, okay. Poor baby Steve. And I'll read a quote.

He said the pain from my injuries from his dad knocking him over disappeared as the pain from his anger crushed me like a bug. But dad, I whimpered. My heart was broken. My pride had turned into an overwhelming sense of confusion and embarrassment, bursting into

uncontrollable state of crying. I ran off down the rocks. I ran and ran, bawling my eyes out. Finally, I had to stop running. As I was crying so hard, I couldn't get my breath. I was sobbing so much. My breathing was impaired and I didn't know what to do. I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah. So I think the way his dad reacted, like really scared him, obviously. But here's a thing. That snake was a brown snake. They are the same. second most venomous snake in the world. Can you imagine as a parent if your kids like, look what I found. And it's literally the second most venomous snake in the world. You might say something that you would regret later. But so yeah, at that point, like you're, you're not really

thinking your gut is sort of taking over. And the phrase you bloody idiot might come out of your mouth before you really are thinking about anything. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I just thought those was I thought it was an interesting story. And then actually the sort of button to that story is that Steve runs off and he's, you know, really upset and he goes down to the river and he's like, I'm going to run away from home and I'm just going to live out here. And he finds a little cave and like he immediately just starts looking for lizards. And I think it just like immediately turns his mood around. And then he hears his dad calling for him out in the bush. And as a he's like, okay, I got to go.

He says, goodbye, little lizards, and he went back to the car, which I just find really sweet. I really like that. I know, goodbye little lizards. So he just always loved wildlife. And I think, honestly, I mean, I think every kid loves animals and loves wildlife. And I'm sure Steve Irwin, like, he had a very heightened kind of love of wildlife. But also his parents really encourage. it and nurtured that

passion about wildlife from a very young age. But I think, like him saying goodbye little lizards to the, I think they were cunning him skinks, is what he found. But he, I think that's a way that a lot of kids talk to animals. Yeah.

They talk to them in a very empathetic and caring and just warm way. And I think the thing that people love about Steve Irwin is he just never stopped doing that, like, as he got older. I mean, he, obviously there is the crocodile catching aspect and it's very, like, it's framed in the show very much as like, I'm a man off to catch this

dangerous crocodile. Yeah. And it's, and it's like produced and edited that way, I think, because I imagine, because there's a sense of like, well, this is kind of, you know, yeah, what you're saying, the kind of like emphasizing the 90s masculinity of it, I guess. Right. Yeah. But you know, When he kind of takes a beat and he's kind of slowing down and he's just talking about an animal, he really does have that warmth. And he just, you genuinely believe, and I think it is genuine on his part, that he loves, like, every animal that he encounters and thinks they're like the most amazing thing in the world. And he knows, you know, all these really cool, interesting facts.

And I do, like, that part of him was very authentic. I think that was part of his appeal was that he just brought that kind of childlike wonder through and shared it with people and people really responded to it. Anyway, so he like, he and his family eventually, they move from Victoria to Queensland and his parents buy a piece of property because they realize, oh, we have all of these animals. We need somewhere to keep them. also were kind of interested in starting a zoo, basically. So they opened the Birwa Reptile Park,

and this is along the Bruce Highway, along the Sunshine Coast. It's the same place that the Australia Zoo is today. They opened it in 1970, started with just four acres, and they, I guess, primarily had reptiles. I don't, they may have had, like, I think maybe his mom was still, like, doing a lot of, like, kangaroo,

and Wombat and other marsupials and other mammal rehabilitation, but primarily a reptile park. And his dad, Bob Irwin, he kind of built it from the ground up. And then in the 1980s, the family were still running this park, but it became the Queensland Reptile and Fana Park in 1980. And about this time is when Steve and his dad, Bob, got serious about rescuing crocodiles in Australia. And I just want to say, actually, I meant to say this at the top of the episode, I know you have a lot of really wonderful listeners in Australia, and I am doing my best to like, you know, tell the story of what it's like to be in Australia as best I can. But, you know, it's obviously from just my perspective. And, you know, I don't want to imply that I know

what it's like growing up and living in Australia or Queensland or whatever. But as a we mentioned, we did spend some time there. So there is some context. Yeah. But yeah, right. The context is that we're doing our best with like a limited framework, but with like enough of one to maybe like understand how much complexity we don't get, hopefully. Yeah. Although we still do like to say clear, the water. The condensation clear. The condensation. Not happy Jan. katha it's like kath with an a that's your favorite that's what it is my favorite that's for all our katha katha it's like kath with an eye it's literally the only thing i can say in an azi accent and so i i promise to all your listeners i am not going to attempt australian accent from here on now that's

your one that is my one thing yeah i cannot for the life of me do an azi accent i can't do an azic I can't do a Kiwi accent. Well, because, you know, Australians are like, where's the car? And we're like, where's the car? The thing is in the show, I can hear the difference. Can you? Because I can't. I feel like I can.

I know. It's not, it's a demeanor thing to me more than anything. Yes. At least the way he does it. You say it with 40% less optimism. Yes, exactly. Yeah. If we kind of jump ahead a little bit in his timeline that they had the reptile park in Queensland, and then, you know, around that time, they were, he and his dad were catching crocodiles to, like, rehabilitate or relocate because they're problem crocodiles.

And what is a problem crocodile? I feel like we should maybe establish this now. Is this like you, a crocodile is in your yard and you're like, no, I'd like you to take it away? Okay. Well, I'm not so, I mean, maybe not in your yard, though. I think that would probably constitute a. problem crocodile, I'd imagine, but it's a crocodile kind of like bears here in the U.S. If they're getting too close to people. Like black bears that are just like eating your trash all the time. Yeah, if they're, so in parts of Australia where crocodiles are present, if people are out fishing and this crocodile is just like hanging out too close or maybe even like bumping the side of a boat trying to investigate the boat or whatever.

And, yeah, God, that's scary. It would be scary. I'm not going to lie. That would be very, especially, you know, imagine these crocodiles. They get up to like, you know, like 12 feet long or maybe, maybe even longer. It would be really scary. And so some of the approach with, well, again, like predators here in the U.S., you know, ranchers, farmers will kind of take it into their own hands, take the situation in their own hands, and they may shoot a crocodile. And that happens a lot or has happened a lot in the past.

And I'm sure it still happens. But the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service, they hire people, and I'm sure other states, too, to capture problem crocodiles and relocate them, which is something that they have done with bears too. And then they send them to the reformatory. Well, I know. And actually, another thing that happens occasionally is there's crocodile farms in Australia. and sometimes these crocodiles are sent to the crocodile farms.

So eventually maybe, I mean crocodile like. Is that like for handbags and stuff? Oh, meat. Yeah, and their skin too. And I know that there's also like programs to not just catch crocodiles and relocate them or possibly send them the crocodile farms, but also to collect crocodile eggs to like kind of as like a predator management sort of thing. and those eggs will be to devil and send to Jeff Bezos from his party.

Oh my God. Oh. But anyway, okay. So there's crocodile farms. If you're a problem crocodile. Yeah. It feels kind of like a kid's movie. You could be sent to the crocodile farm.

I know, right? Yeah. So it would be good to be relocated. Yeah, relocated. Or if it's like they're too much of a problem, then they might take the crocodile back to the zoo. Is this like if it's like, if it's like, if it's like, they keep bothering people. Is that what makes them a problem crocodile? Okay. And why do they bother people? Are they bored? Do they want food? Do they want to eat us? Are we on their territory, perhaps, building

ranch houses on it? Yeah. If you're in their territory, especially saltwater crocodiles, I think there is a high risk of if you're swimming in crocodile territory. I don't want to say crocodile infested, because I know that's a thing with like people say shark infested waters. And it's like they aren't infesting the waters. They live there. God, what a good point, Brianna. My God, I've been taking part in anti-shark rhetoric without realizing it. Yeah, it's an important thing to know. These animals don't infest their own habitat. It's actually human infested. We're the ones who aren't supposed to be there from the shark's perspective. I mean, look, not to take, obviously, I'm not on the side of the sharks. But when you think about it, the sharks are the ones who are more surprised than anyone to

find that we're there all of a sudden, I bet. Yeah. So, So, yeah, and it's the same with crocodiles. And to be clear, too, like, I think Australians, for the most part, like, understand to not swim in certain areas. Well, unlike Americans, you know, here's something Americans have never had. And I bet you know what I'm going to say. We've never had a leader of our country who went for a swim and disappeared in a way that caused people to reasonably theorize he might have been eaten by a shark. Yeah. I think that if you grow up in Australia.

you just understand that you have a healthy respect for crocodiles. I'm sure there have been cases of Australians being attacked, but it certainly seems to be like tourists or people that don't quite understand the danger of swimming in a crocodile's habitat. Right. If you go to like far north Queensland, there's beaches with netting out in the water for the purpose of keeping crocodiles out of the water by the beach.

But you better hope that netting holds. Yeah. And there's some nuance to that too because the netting can also like, you know, animals get entangled in it. So it's also like causing some ecological harm locally. There's mixed feelings about it. But it helps protect people from being attacked by crocodiles. Well, that seems good.

But all that's to say that crocodiles are sort of like a thing that you have to deal with potentially. Yeah. In your day-to-day life. And, you know, and also like that's to say that. like living with any other dangerous thing. You know, like people who live where there are a lot of tornadoes, you know, you adapt to it to some extent. Yeah, you just, yeah, you adapt.

And, you know, I think that the Jurassic Park movies, even the really terrible sequels that I enjoy so much, all have a good lesson that will help us survive. Because in those movies, the people who want to cynically profit off of dinosaurs are the ones who get eaten by dinosaurs and the ones who are in awe of dinosaurs and, like, respect them for what they are, are the ones who look less yummy to. dinosaurs apparently. It might not work that well, but, you know, they know how to keep a distance and not try and have dinosaur auctions in their basement. Yeah. No, I mean, I think having a healthy respect of any predator is just a good way to move about in the world. Yeah. Or any animal,

because a deer will also really, really mess you up potentially. Yes. Yes, exactly. But so Steve and his dad had this job and they were working as crock catchers for the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service. When Steve was how old, was this like an after school job? It was, you know, I don't know about when he was in school, but it was certainly during his like early 20s. And he didn't go, he didn't go to uni. He didn't go to university. So he was just working at the reptile park and also working, he says, working full time. It's just like a family job, I guess, right? And kind of what he grew up with.

Yeah, exactly. But he has, like, I know like the things we see on the crocodile hunter, some of the stuff he does, like on camera is pretty incredible still. It is actually really fun to watch the crocodile hunter still. Should we watch like a little clip or a promo or something of it? Yeah, let's do that. I did pull up some stuff. Oh, nice. Let's see. I'm going to pull up my favorite one that I found. This is a clip from the crocodile hunter. I forget which season it was, but they went to East Timor actually. So later on in the show, they were, well, even early on in the show, they were like traveling around too.

But definitely later in the seasons, he was doing a lot more traveling. But he went to East Timor. And there were two crocodiles that were held in captivity in a zoo, but they were in like really poor condition. and the conditions they were in were really bad. And I think it was like the Australian Army had people stationed there. They contacted Steve and his team to come over and help with these crocodiles. And they actually, while they were there, built an entirely new enclosure around the corner from where these crocodiles were and then moved the crocodiles to the new enclosure. Crocodile movers.

Yeah. This isn't like in the wild necessarily. but I thought it was actually one of the more kind of intense ones that I watched. And also I should say, I guess I said it was on Discovery Zone, but I was wrong about it and the show was on Animal Planet, a wonderful channel. Yeah, I was good. Yeah. I can't remember if it like started on Discovery or if it always was Animal Planet.

But anyway, I mean, Animal Planet is like a subsidiary of discovery or was at the time. So it was, they're definitely linked to each other. But he was more highly associated with animal planet as time went on. So he was definitely like a part of their brand. Brian is our curator of crocodiles. And not only is he cutting an open. Oh, they have a curator of crocodiles. But he also knows how important it is to clear all the debris.

I believe. Rocks, glass, wire. Everything must be removed. So they're making their crocodile enclosure. They're, I think, moving stuff out of the way to move her out. out of the enclosure. I'd say we get two on. You guys, the first two on, followed by Bruce and Kevy behind us.

But just watch out falling over each other. Because she's still big enough and ugly enough to break your legs. Probably and a few stitches, but not too bad. So that's West Mannion. He's Steve's best friend and still works at the Australia Zoo. He's kind of lassoing her, huh? So he's putting on the crocodile to be clear.

A top jaw rope. Okay. Top jaw rope is key. Yeah, tell us what he's doing. So, yeah, he's, yeah, it is like a lasso or like a slip knot kind of, and he's putting that around her top jaw. So this is like the main way that they can control the crocodile. So this is like one person will put tension on one.

And then another person will put tension on the other. It's just a way to like control the crocodile. And these are like not thick ropes either. I'm sure they're like sufficient, but they're. Just like regular like Indiana Jones kind of ropes. Yeah. I've seen pasta thicker than this. But I think a detail that I loved actually from watching this episode is, you know, he's using a stick to like kind of nudge the slip over the top jaw of the crocodile.

And you might think like, oh, it's just because that's the easiest thing on hand. But he does that also so that if they bite on it, it won't damage their teeth. Oh. Yeah. So he's really like trying to make sure that animals are. Yeah. And not that I think that's above and beyond. I guess sort of the amount of the kind of knowledge and experience.

Yeah. Right. So now they just dragged her out of the water. So this animal has been in this pool for like years and years. And a bunch of guys have jumped on top of her and are holding her jaws closed with their upper body strength. Yeah. So then this is like the approach. so they'll like jump on top of a on top of the crocodile, keep their jaw closed,

and then they'll tie a rope around the jaws to then keep the jaw secured. Then they put a blind around the eyes. A blindfold keeps them calmer. Like a lot of animals, it just seems to reduce their stress slightly. Like when at the vet, they wrap my cat in a towel to give it a shot. Yeah. So now the team is carrying this crocodile, which I think is like well over, it's like 10 feet long at least. looks like a dinosaur.

A real dinosaur. Yeah, exactly. Just a total dinosaur. Oh, and now she's thrashing a little. And they're just loading her into the back of a pickup truck. Yeah, so they're going to, what they're doing, they're going to take her down to the ocean first because she's been in this like really gross pool for a long time.

There's lots of bacteria. And they said there's like, just like smell and like they're just afraid that they want to wash away some of the dirty washing. water off of her before they put her in her new enclosure. Nice. They're going to give her a bath. They're taking out for a little spa day, if you will. Yeah, basically.

Now they're loading her back into the truck. And this poor crocodile, like, she really has been in that pool for years and years. Can't remember if it was this one. They're going to help another one. But she was, one of them was in the pool for, like. like 13 years or something crazy. Oh my gosh. And like barely enough room to turn around and really bad conditions. So they literally came here and like built her a new pool. Like, and did it. I'm sure it took a longer than how it looks on the TV, but it looks like they did it in a day. I'm sure

it wasn't quite that. They got an audience of people cheering as they're bringing this crocodile back in. Yes. Yeah. They, they all these people are around. They're like, in the trees and sitting on top of the like the walls and watching them put this crocodile bag. Gricy, we've gained quite an audience. The local peoples have come in their droves. They love their crocs. But yeah, it's, I think I just, I love, I love this one because there was just so much like

care given to this animal. Yeah. You can just feel the love. the love that Steve Irwin has for this animal. Yeah. So now they're going to, they put her back in her pool, tell the first team to go, and they get off the tail. Second team gets off the rest of the body.

The moment of truth. Here we go. And then the moment comes when you have to, like, release your hands from her jaws and just, like, beat it out of there. Wow. Yeah, so she was by the water, but she's stressed and disoriented. So she's whipped around and she has like a little sandy area and all the crowd is screaming. She's got her, her mouth is opening.

She's got a sassy little look on her face. Yeah. And Steve is hanging out in the enclosure with her. Yeah, he's trying to direct her back to the water. Oh, and there she goes. But he's like saying she's blind in this eye. So she's like, he's trying to like be aware of like, okay, she can't see us and like we need to be aware of that. I die defending crocodiles and I'll use my body wherever I can for her best interests.

I love her. And then he like kind of scoops up her tail and like pushes her into the pool. I just really enjoyed. It's like a home renovation show. They built her a new house. They're like, what do you think? Right. I really liked that.

I know. I also, I think that when we talk about taking care of wildlife on the terms that they require, I think, to me, it's a big mark of distinction to be able to offer all this time and energy to a species of animal that you can't really project gratitude onto. Yeah. And that would bite your arm off if it felt like it. Yes. You know, because that's like, I respect that quite a bit. Yeah. I think it's something that I respect about Steve Irwin.

And we can get into now some of the, like around this time, if we're following the timeline, well, first he like meets his wife, Terry. And actually for their honeymoon, that's when they filmed like one of the first bits of footage for the crocodile hunter. Yeah. It's like how Stevie Nix for it stand back on her honeymoon. Yeah. Although that marriage did not last.

Yeah. But so then in this period of his life, Terry by his side from day one, they start filming for the crocodile hunter. And obviously, it's a huge success, not so much in Australia, but definitely in the states and other countries. And when I say successful, like, I think people just didn't feel as strongly about the crocodile hunter, about Steve Irwin as, like, Americans did. Like, he was much more popular in the States. Right. Because it's like much less of an everyday thing for us, let's say. Yeah. And also Americans, loved Crocodile Dundee, and we really needed another one of those.

Yeah, yeah. And they definitely, I mean, some of the, like, the branding and the vision, I guess, of the show was, I think, kind of leaning into that kind of story, I guess. But people in Australia were generally not as, like, they didn't get as excited about Steve Irwin as, like, Americans did. And generally, the feeling was that he was just kind of cringe, you know, they felt like he was really putting it on and really exaggerating. Which I can't imagine an American producer in this time being like, Steve, I need you to crank it up like 80%.

Okay, 80% on top of that, even more. Right. More. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of people that have interacted with him and even someone I was talking to the other day, someone that had worked with someone that had worked with Steve said that, yeah, okay, there was a bit of a showman persona that he put on for the camera. obviously. Well, and I will say like this is why I envy like, I don't know, like Norwegian slow

television because I wish that we could have more American TV personalities who are like, hello, we're going to talk today about this thing. Yeah. Or just three hours of a train ride through Sweden or something. Yeah. I love those so much. I love to be bored. Yeah. There's one thing about me. I would like everything to be quieter and take longer. But yeah, so I think Australia, millions were sort of, they were like, oh, you're a little much. But yeah, of course he was dialing it up for a camera. I mean, we can't, no one really thinks that he was like this every second of his life, right? Like, he can't be like, I'm going to buy a huge hot dog at this wah-wah and a giant soda, you know, to yourself. Right. No, I don't think so. Not that buying that is unbelievable,

but narrating it to yourself and that tone is, is what I'm saying. That's what my order would be. Yeah, of course. But yeah, he definitely in earlier episodes, he seems a little more. Subdued. Grounded. Yeah. The enthusiasm and the warmth is still there, but it's definitely not as exaggerated as it

is later on. And I think another part of why I like that clip that I just showed you is that there's very little of him like narrating to the camera. So it is him just like doing his job. which I found interesting watching that. It felt like, oh, okay, this is like what he does. This is what he's good at. He's directing the team.

You can hear him like shouting directions to his team. He's obviously a very good leader. Yeah, certainly in this footage, which I don't remember, you know, being part of kind of the, I don't know, just the simplified version of it. And that's really cool to see. Yeah. And from what I can tell that people that worked with him really loved working with him, there was that enthusiasm, but it's sort of like, I think the best description I saw was that,

you know, behind the scene, he'd be like, oh, cricky, isn't she beautiful or whatever? But then in front of the camera, it's like in all caps where it's like, cricky, isn't she beautiful? Like, so. And you can see like early episodes versus later episodes. Like he's just learned to like ham it up for the camera because he was taking off in the States. And that was what we loved about them. And so they learned like, oh, people love seeing you like this. They love seeing you using, you know, the Aussie slang and really like-

They love it when you cranky it up. Yes, exactly. But I do think, and a lot of Australians have said, they found it again, a little cringe. They were just like, this is, okay, this is the guy who's representing us. We don't all talk like this. We're not all wrestling crocodiles. Yeah. And in the 90s, I think there wasn't so much of a sense of like, I think the internet has helped Americans to like understand or at least be exposed to the cultures of different countries more. But like we were really going on peer stereotypes for relationships with every other country at that time. Yeah. I mean, I do think at that time, Steve Irwin was the cultural ambassador for Australia for better or for worse. He was one of the main ones. I mean, who else was there? Tony Colette? Yeah, I don't know, but no one on the level of Steve Rowan. No, yeah.

Well, and how did this TV thing get started? Well, I mean, he was recording footage of himself out doing his work, like, even when he is by himself. He was aware that this was like a cool thing to see. Yeah. And in that sense, I do think that it wasn't just like someone stumbled on Steve Rowan was like, oh, like, this is right for TV. It was... Cranky, it's a Steve Irwin. I think he knew.

He was like... And I think that in that way, Steve Irwin has always had a bit of media savviness and knew that, like, media could be used as a tool for conservation work, which was his main passion. I think he also just knew, like, I have a very unique job, and I want to share it with people, and I think people will think it's cool. Did he think that crocodiles and big predators like that were getting a bad rap?

Was that part of it? Yes. So that was like part of the, when he started with his dad with the crocodile catching a relocation and that sort of stuff. Their mission then, as it was throughout Steve's career, was that they felt that crocodiles were unfairly maligned. Oh, they're maligned women. Yeah, they are. And so they just felt like crocodiles, you know, Australia's crocodiles are really special and unique.

and we need to care about them and we need people to love them. And so part of that was they wanted to catch and relocate them. So not using any kind of like lethal method of getting rid of a problem crocodile. Is this like how I feel about coyotes? You know, how they're just kind of like at large in my neighborhood. And they definitely eat small house pets. But they're also really cool and neat. And I want them to be safe.

Yes, exactly. Or wolves. And for us to, you know, be able to set things up. up in sexual way that they're not able to eat our small house pets. Right. Bob and Steve wanted to and Lynn, too. They all wanted to educate people about how to peacefully coexist with crocodiles rather than having this antagonistic relationship with crocodiles.

Right. So that's been like the mission of the Irwin's, you know, from day one. They've just loved crocodiles and wanted to help and, you know, save crocodiles where they can. And I believe that's, you know, some of the impetus of the crocodile hunter as a show. Which ironically, we have to sell to American TV by implying that we're decreasing the crocodile population to get people to change the channel. Right. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure why exactly they landed on that. You know, it's just I just think that it sounds better. It plays better. And my conspiracy theory about American culture, if you will, is that we are more inclined to tune in.

to anything if it involves violence. I mean, that's not even totally American, right? If it bleeds, it leads. Right. I think you're absolutely right. If it was called the crocodile rescuer, we'd be like, no, thank you. Yeah, exactly. Although rescuers do indeed tend to work down under.

Yeah. The thing with, I think, like, as you anticipated early on, one of the main critiques, criticisms of Steve Irwin's crocodile hunter is, of course, that he is doing like some, really exceptionally dangerous things with dangerous animals. Such as. Picking up venomous snakes, for one. Which, again, I get that, like, there are jobs where you interact with them and you know

what you're doing. But I guess the thing is that, like, there's an inevitable margin of error, right? Right. And also, the average 11-year-old kid maybe doesn't realize that, you know, and I'm sure they've got disclaimers, right? But is there a worry that, like, kids are going to try this at home? Yes. And the other concern, well, okay, so there was the concern that people would be trying this at home.

And he does literally verbatim say that many times throughout the show. He's like, don't try this. I'm an expert. I've been doing this my whole life. And the problem is no matter how many times you say that, people will still try it at home, I think. You know, you can't account for free will. Yes, exactly. And I think maybe less so when it was first airing, because it was still traditional.

cable television at the time, right? That was our main media. By which you mean like broadcast TV, nothing was streaming. It was like it was on when you happened to catch it. We had a lot of reruns. Yeah. Yeah. This was definitely way before any social media. And there is an element of critique around Steve Irwin that this kind of wildlife media that he created of having these really up close like really up close, like literally handling a wild animal on camera, has perhaps allowed other people to think that that's okay to do. And it's been a few years, obviously he died in 2006, as we mentioned. But it could be like this continuing legacy of that style of a wildlife documentary,

of, you know, instead of standing back and allowing an animal to exist as they are and watching more sort of natural behaviors from a distance, we have this person who is really getting up in there and like chasing down an animal and grabbing it and holding it and the animal is stressed. And you know, and Steve Irwin always is like, oh, she's really grumpy. She's really grumpy. And it's like, yeah, maybe.

Right. And the joke at the time was like, maybe she'd be less grumpy if you weren't grabbing her. Yeah. And, you know, dragging her around or whatever. You know, that was at least the stereotype. He sort of was going. I think that was like the joke on South Park that he was going around pissing off animals. Yeah, exactly. And I don't think that's incorrect, you know. I do think that that is worth criticizing from a science communication standpoint of like if we're trying to educate people about wildlife and how to interact with wildlife, we don't want to encourage people to like walk up to animals. And we certainly don't want to encourage people to touch them. As I mentioned, Steve Irwin did say many times in the show,

don't do this. But, you know, there's a difference in saying don't do this, but, you know, people seeing you do it and being like, well, that looks cool. Like, I want to go grab that raccoon and see what happens, like that sort of thing. And to be clear, absolutely clear, it is not allowed to do that in Australia now. Like, I think at the time, I believe at the time, you know, even they would need permits to do this sort of thing. There is also kind of room. that sometimes, and I'm not with all of the animals, but that, you know, maybe some of the animals were staged in some way. I don't know in what way, but like that it wasn't totally just like, oh, I'm just rolling up

on this snake and grabbing it. I mean, yeah, I'm very willing to believe that, just based on what we know of how, how American reality TV is made. And that we are like in the reality TV wheelhouse and there is always going to be like, a combative relationship between reality TV and truth telling. Right. Yes. And just like a combative relationship between what the goals are of conservation and education and media. You know, like what makes a good TV show may not be what's best for animals because honestly the best thing. I believe frequently that's the case. I'm going to go out on a limb even. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think this came up, you know, when we talked about Keko that, you know, the best thing for a lot of animals is for us to just, leave them alone. Yeah, right. And I guess like the difference is that like sometimes the cats already out of the bag, you know, like animals have already been caught up in like the human world in ways that couldn't be helped or weren't helped at the time. And then I think like the question of human intervention often maybe comes up when humans have already intervened negatively in a wild animal's life and then have to try and correct that as best we can. But I feel like that might even, you could even make the argument that that's like the only appropriate time for human intervention. Or, you know, if there's like, you know, you have like an animal with an injury or

something like that, something non-human cause. But it does feel like a lot of the time, like, we're just trying, we're doing our best to course correct something that people already did. Yeah. But in saying that too, I think there's this interesting discussion around Steve Irwin's legacy that the reason he was so successful and actually that he may have made a big difference in people's attitudes towards animals like crocodiles is because he had this really engaged approach of like, I'm going to go and like wrestle with this crocodile basically that caught people's eye. And so I actually had an interesting conversation with a researcher here in Newport that studies maybe the opposite of a crocodile, see anemones.

And actually the stuff he's studying about them, his name's Nate Kirk, is really cool. There's just like really interesting things about anemones that I never knew. And he was saying that we're talking about him because we want to, with a group that I work with here, wanted to maybe get some of his grad students out doing tight pool tours. He's like, yeah, you know, it's great to talk to people in like a lecture or a video or show pictures. But really how you get people to care about the environment and wildlife is to get them out there and actually, he used the words like touching it, you know, like actually touching these

anemones and, you know, see what they're like. And I think that's true. I think we have like really strong. Touching anemones has been a meaningful part of my life as an Oregonian. I'll say that. and as an Oregonian child specifically. Right. Because at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, you and I both grew up with this, they have the

Tidepool exhibit and where you can touch anemones and stuff. And you learn that you have to be very, very gentle when you touch an anemone. And that makes an impression on a kid. It does. And I think we all, as human beings, I think we have really, like, core memories, not just from childhood, but throughout our life, like, just really stand out memories where we had a wildlife encounter. It could just be like, oh, you got really close to a raccoon or something like that. It doesn't mean you have to like, you know, be like touching them. But just like having

You really shouldn't. You really shouldn't. Do not. Do not. Let me be clear. Because rabies vaccines are hard to get in a hurry and that is what you will be doing, chances are. Yes. Yeah. You know, as much as we all love Jimothy, don't try to do not approach Jimith. Do not approach Jimith. Do not approach Jimith. But, you know, I think there is something kind of wired in our brain that if we have an encounter like that with an animal, with a wild animal, it really sticks with us. And it can lead to a lot of empathy for an animal. And I think that Steve's approach was like, okay, well, I can't, obviously, you can't get a bunch of people out here wrestling crocodiles with me.

So I will show people. I mean, overall, I do think in this regard that Steve was like a very positive force and a role model. Like, again, like, I think he had a net benefit on the world. But I do think it is worth kind of calling out this approach of like, okay, is there a place for this, especially now? Like, is there a place for this style of, you know, wildlife documentary? I don't think, A, I don't think it would be even like approved in most. I know there are some people still doing this sort of thing. But I think it's generally kind of frowned upon.

But especially in this day and age of social media, because. I know a lot of wildlife management agencies are constantly dealing with people that are approaching wildlife and trying to get videos and selfies and whatnot and putting themselves in danger, putting the wildlife in danger. And it is an issue. And so we want to discourage that kind of behavior in people. It is a good thing to remember that, especially if we go to a new environment, there's just things that you obviously won't know and you won't understand. And I think that is some of the role of like wildlife documentaries and media to like educate people. But there is still that distance of like, well, I just saw this through my TV or on a screen in some way.

Or it's something you encounter mostly as entertainment. As entertainment, exactly. As opposed to the world you're in. How did Steve get on TV? Okay. So I think the best. best way to start with how Steve got on TV is actually to start with Terry. Oh, yeah. Because actually, they got on TV at the same time. Steve was never by himself on the crocodile hunter. And how did they

meet? It's like a key part of his story and his life. He just loved, he loved his wife so much. And Terry loved him so much. And their love story is just really a key part of who they were. I can tell you're going to make me cry. Oh, no. I know. There's a good chance I'm going to cry to you. So you're definitely going to cry and I probably will too. I cry very easily these days clearly. Okay. So Terry Irwin was her married name, obviously. Her original name was Terry Raines. She's actually from Eugene, Oregon. She grew up in Eugene and she is kind of a wildlife badass in her own right. She was running a rehabilitation facility for predatory mammals in Oregon at the time that she and Steve met. And she got started with her wildlife rehabilitation facility when she came across a ad in the Oregonian, our biggest newspaper, for mountain lion cubs for sale.

And she was like, what the heck? Yeah, I know. This was back in, I guess, late 80s. And she went to this guy and she was like, wow, these mountain line cubs are not in a great situation. Were she like, hello, I will take them all? Basically. Or I guess it was just one at the time. And she took it home.

She bought it and raised it. Her name was Molina. And Terry cared for Molina for most of her life. And that's where Terry started this well. Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. And so she got actually like certification from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. There's some sort of certification you can get that you can still get, I believe. I was looking into it.

I was like, huh, put a pin in that for a later day. But very few joys, if any. Not so many joys except for maybe possums, possum joys. Do we have the marsupial kind of possum? Or is that like, aren't there like different kinds of possums? Opossums are marsupials, I believe. Yeah? Yeah, there are only marsupial.

I'm Googling it right now. This is not off the top of my head. Yeah, it's our only marsupial in North America. I didn't know we had a marsupial. Yeah, we do. Opossums. And they're so cute. And to be a marsupial, is it basically that you have a pouch where you keep your little babies?

That's my understanding. I don't know a lot about marsupials, but I think one of the, the key things is that they have a pouch. So the baby only develops part of the way. You know, they're not like other mammals where a baby is mostly fully formed, more or less. And they can be teeny tiny. It's actually pretty clever. I would like to have a pouch. I know. Because you put your teeny tiny little, you know, like your little naked moorat-looking baby in there. And then you can just keep opening it up to take a little peek every now and then. And then make sure they're okay. And then when the baby's fully baked, you just have like a big, like a gap hoodie pocket-sized open.

Yeah, exactly. Which I think is much better than the current system. Well, I think we really missed out by not being marsupials. I know. I think they figure something out that it's a little better than childbirth. Yeah. I learned in the process of researching this show that Tasmanian Devils, which are another marsupial, They give birth to actually up to 40 young at a time.

Well, that's kind of a lot. But then, I mean, this is a little sad, but I just thought it was interesting. Then they only have four teeth. Oh, no. This is like a battle royale of baby Tasmanian doubles. I don't know, but they're like the size of a grain of rice when they're born, apparently. Oh, gosh. I know, right?

Nagers. Over the top. Jinks. Yeah. Anyway, okay, so Terry starts off as an actualist in her own right. Yes, and she's doing some pretty, like, out there stuff, too. So Melina became kind of an ambassador animal, and Terry would bring Melina to court hearings for poachers. For like a victim impact statement.

Yeah, yes, exactly. And she has this kind of crazy story where there was this one poacher guy who did something awful. And I won't repeat what it was because it was just awful. And he got convicted and the judge was going to sentence him to some community service. And Terry was like, how about this guy comes and works for me at my Wildlife Rehabilitation Center? Like her whole thing was like maybe I can try to change this guy's attitude towards wildlife. And I mean, she says she's not sure if she did, but that was her philosophy and mentality. So you can kind of see where she wasn't just on a trip to Australia doing.

you know, just being like, oh, who's this crazy crocodile guy that have bumped into? Like, she had her own wildlife conservation and communication kind of history prior. And it's what connected them. Yeah. Well, and it seems like they both have in common maybe a philosophy of like, if you see an ad for a mountain lion, you get that mountain lion. And if you see a crocodile who's in a really bad enclosure, you take that crocodile to the beach and give it a spa day. And then you put it in a new enclosure. Yeah.

Just take it one crocodile at a time. That's really on the nose. She has some story in her book where she kind of learned this from her dad originally because her dad loved wildlife too, that she learned at an early age. Like if she comes across an issue with an animal to always stop and fix it, like don't just like keep walking by. So that was really a part of her internal compass throughout her life. I'm sure it still is part of her philosophy. So that's kind of who she was before she goes on this auspicious trip to Australia with a girlfriend of hers in October 1991.

She was kind of scoping out some zoos to potentially send Molina the mountain line to because she was like, well, Molina probably can't stay here with me forever. I mean, she had built like an enclosure and everything, but she was like, zoo would probably be a better fit. She's not going to be released. Pisturing them like Laverning Shirley. They're in like twin beds.

Turner and Hooch, but it's. Yeah. Terry and Molina. I'd watch that movie. So why? She goes to Australia with a girlfriend. And like I said, she's kind of scoping out some zoos. And she sees this reptile park, Queensland Reptile Park.

And she's like, yeah, I don't know. It's probably just some tiny little park, like probably nothing, but I'll go check it out. And then while she's there, Steve is giving a crocodile demonstration. She's like, oh, who's this guy? And also from her description is just very appealing to her how much he obviously cares about the crocodiles and talks about them in very, like, warm and loving ways while he's also, like, dangling like a giant piece of meat in front of them and trying to jump out of the way. They are really fun to watch.

I highly recommend looking up the crocodile demonstrations at the Australia Zoo, and especially the ones with Steve Irwin. Should we watch one? Yeah, totally. I have one pulled up here. Let's see. Supposedly, this is the last one. I mean, this is from a Reddit thread, so it's not a reliable source.

but the headline says that it's, or the subject line says that it's his last show at the Australia Zoo before he died. A subject line has alleged. Yeah. Just want to make it clear and not positive it is, but it could be. Jumping in the water. Splash in, splish splashing around. Splish flashing. There's a crocodile coming towards a Monty.

Swimming towards where he gets splashed. He's gotten out of the water and the crocodile is swimming towards where he just was. Yeah. The crocodile looks very active, right? Yep. Oh, yeah. Yep. He's got his mouth open.

Hello. Kind of chasing Steve around a little bit. Steve is just kind of like dancing around like a boxer. He's got like a little knee brace on. He has a support crew. He has a pit crew behind him, basically. Yeah. That I'm sure they're partially if anything goes wrong.

I mean, that's only the. smart thing to do. Yeah. So now he's got a piece of meat that's like attached to a piece of rope. And now he's basically like the crocs grabbed it and now they're basically playing tug award. Terry's narrating the whole thing. So yeah, it's like very entertaining and kind of like showing off what the crocodile can do and like, I mean, are there people, I have to assume that someone somewhere is like, hey, don't do that with that crocodile. Oh, you know. I think a lot of people have found this kind of approach that Steve has had very silly and very, yeah.

Well, it's a bit silly, but, you know, it's also for kids partly, I have to think. Yeah. Because part of this is about just showing off a wild animal to kill. I don't know. Because it's like we talked about SeaWorld and that being. a problem, I think maybe mainly because it's impossible to like you mainly have a captive orca. Right. And I'm sure people would argue that you also can't do that with large reptiles.

But I tend to think that the bar is a lot lower. Well, I think the thing with these crocodiles is that they're taking crocodiles that were slated to be removed anyway. Right. Crocodiles from the reformatory. They were problem crocodiles and like relocation for whatever reason isn't a possibility because you could you could possibly relocate them. I would imagine that there's not a ton of facilities in Australia that can take in like fully grown crocodiles. So it's not like common for them to be in captivity like this. But I think that probably Steve and his team more than most people were equipped to do that.

And yeah, they weren't just taking like, oh, let's go catch a. random crocodile we find and put them in. Right. It's not like the purpose is not like to exhibit them commercially. The purpose is for like last stop show business. Yeah, I see. Yeah. Actually, he wrote in his book, so there's a book called The Crocodile Hunter by Steve and Terry

Irwin. Perfect. And in it, he said, the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, which is what it was before it was Australia Zoo, was not about catching a bunch of crocodiles and sticking them in cages for people to look at. No way. never, not on your life. That's what he wrote.

That's nice. So, I know. His voice comes through very strongly in his book. Like, I have a scene that hopefully we can get to to read. Unbridled enthusiasm. Unbridled enthusiasm. So Terry sees him doing the crocodile show. She's like, I like the way that man shows a crocodile.

Yeah, basically. And after the demonstration. I believe. This video we just watched, the facility that was built many years later. That facility is called the Crocosium, of course. And they didn't have that before. I get the impression before it was really just like there was a pool and there was a crocodile and people could like watch maybe at like the fence or something. Yeah, the Crocosium. That was one of Steve's big ideas when he was at the Australia Zoo. But anyway, Terry talks to him after the show. She's like, how long have you been in Crocs?

I think so. I think they basically immediately hit it off talking about animals. And what's really a cute detail about their love story is someone took a now kind of famous picture of the two of them when they were having their very first conversation with each other, like basically the moment that they met each other. There's a picture of them, which I think is very, I don't know, just really sweet. Show me. Oh, okay. Sorry. Should be.

Okay, here we go. And of course he's wearing like in a kubra hat and wearing his khakis. Wow. He looks exactly like on his show. And they both are like, I don't know, I guess like very young and healthy and sunny and have kind of like curly sandy hair and are smiling really. big. Yeah. And the caption is, I was never won for Sheila's. I haven't come across that quote anywhere else, but. Well. So who knows? Maybe AI was like I was never one for Sheila's. I mean, I think it, it sounds like Steve was

very smitten immediately. And Terry says that she was. It wouldn't be by a woman who, understands your love of the main thing you love, you know, except for men who are weirdly competitive about it and hate it when they meet a woman who's good at something they value. Right. We don't care about them. No. We're talking about Steve. We're talking about Steve here. And yeah, I think they bonded immediately because she was like, hey, I run a wildlife center and like my best friend is a mountain line. And I'm sure Steve was like, wow, you're the perfect woman. Yeah. Yeah. So they just hit it off immediately and they immediately spent like a lot of time together. I think that she ended up going back to Brisbane with her friend and then talk to Steve again on the phone and

he was like, do you want to come back out to the zoo? And she's like, sure. So she came out and like, he like booked her a hotel. They didn't stay there together apparently, but that's what she said. And she like spent the whole weekend at the zoo. And then the part that I was like, wow, They were really into each other immediately. So she, Terry goes back to Oregon. This is like early November in 1991. And Steve calls her in Oregon. And it was like, hey, how about I come visit within like 10 days of her getting back to Oregon?

And that's like, and as Brana, you know, that's like kind of a huge hassle to get all the way over here. Exactly. I would like reading this story I'm like I can't imagine what it was like in 1991 to fly between Australia and Oregon like well I guess at least maybe they at least you could smoke maybe probably not by that I think actually it could less smoke on a plane and like sometime in the 80s yeah more food we hope I guess they feed you still on international flights more food but less in-flight entertainment but okay back to Terry so So he comes to Oregon, right? Yeah, so he comes to Oregon.

The first time he comes up, he's like, it's November. He's like, I'll come visit you in 10 days. And she's like, you realize. The weather's great where I am and not so much where you are. Yeah. And she's like, you realize that there's this holiday called Thanksgiving? And he's like, yeah, but he obviously actually doesn't know or hasn't heard of it. So he ends up coming over for Thanksgiving and meets Terry's whole family and spends Thanksgiving with them.

They go and like hike around the coast range. She goes and skis on Mount Bachelor, like he has his little Oregon holiday when he's over here. And they go look for wildlife, of course. Then Terry visits Steve again in January in 1992. So just like a month later, she comes over for a second time. She spends like four weeks there. And they go out in the bush and out on the Burdican River. And she kind of gets exposed to Steve's life of living out in the book.

with his dog, Suey, and kind of gets the full Steve Irwin experience in that way, like prior to all the crocodile hunter stuff. And on that trip, like, actually, she phrases it as like one night when they're camping. He kind of says as they're like, you know, about to fall asleep. He's like, is this still tradition for the guy to ask the girl's dad to, like, marry her? Like, is that still a thing? And she's like, uh, I think so. And at the end of the trip, he asks her if they want to get married.

And she says, yes, this is within four months of them meeting each other. They got married in June. So nine months after they first met, they got married. They got married in Oregon. No. Terry says 400 people showed up to their wedding, which I think is crazy. But it was only like eight of Steve's family from Australia because it was like really hard, obviously, to get. people over. Anyway, so they have this whirlwind romance. Terry then moves basically to Australia

immediately after they get married. What she like explains was full of mixed emotions because she said even at the time she knew she was basically saying bye to her life here in the States. Yeah. Which again, like I came back to the States, but I relate to that feeling because Australia and New Zealand are very far away. and it would have felt even farther away at the time. And it's just, it's hard. You can't really continue your life back home in that same way. So she had to hand over her Wild Life Rehabilitation Center,

but she actually had plans to bring Molina, the Cougar, to the Australia Zoo. And at first I was like, what? That's weird. And I was like, wait a second. Zoos always have animals from all over the world. So I guess it would kind of make sense to have a lot. Mount Lion in a zoo in Australia. That was the plan anyway, but I guess Molina, there was, you know, quarantine issues and just

like permits and all the things that by the time they got all that done, Malina, I guess, came down with like a kidney infection and ended up passing away before they could bring her over, which... Oh, poor Melina. Yeah, and really upset Terry quite a bit. Yeah, that's awful. She was able to bring over her dog Shasta over to... Australia and she has to live out the rest of her days in Australia. So she was also involved with

her family's construction business. And this is also something I think is kind of key to knowing about Terry is that she says that she's very entrepreneurial and very business minded as well as being like a wildlife lover. So I think that kind of is important for understanding like their life in the media and also running the zoo eventually. But after they, get married, they go back to Australia after she ties up loose ends here in Oregon, and they go on their honeymoon. Or they almost go on their honeymoon. So I don't know where they were planning to go originally. Steve had become friends with this guy, John Staten. And John Staten was an award-winning documentary filmmaker in Australia. John got his start making commercials originally.

How he and Steve got connected was that John would film a commercial and he needed like a lizard or some sort of zoo animal in it. And so he would contact Steve and be like, hey, I need a gecko or something like that. Do you like have a gecko I could use? Sometimes he need a gecko. And they filmed a beer commercial that involved a crocodile. And that was kind of the first glimpse John had of Steve's potential. like star power, I guess, in that he wanted to film a commercial where someone was throwing a beer can to someone else and a crocodile comes out of the water and, like, almost grabs the beer

can or grabs a beer can. I can't quite remember. And Steve was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that all sounds great. But I have to be like the stunt guy. Like, I have to be the person, like, throwing the beer and like having my hand basically in front of the crocodile. And John, was like, yeah, sounds good. And so when they're filming this, John is sort of like, huh, I feel like there's something here with this guy. But he's like there to support the crocodile initially, which is funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to be fair, this wasn't like his first time in front of a camera. Like when he was catching crocodiles with his dad in Queensland in the 80s, his dad actually got a camcorder, which I think was like this huge honking thing that you had to like

rest on your shoulder and they would bring it with them when they were out catching crocodiles. And they play some of the footage on crocodile hunter. Like Steve will introduce it and be like, back in the day when before crocodile hunter and I don't know, this is obviously not an Australian accent. I don't know what kind of accent I'm trying to do. But anyway, so John films this commercial with Steve. And I guess sort of like behind the scenes, he starts shopping around an idea to different TV producers stations, whatever in Australia, being like, hey, there's this

crazy guy who catches crocodiles. And it's not just that. He is really charismatic. So the timing just happened to be that when John Staten convinced programmers to let him film a documentary about Steve, that's when Steve and Terry were meant to go on their honeymoon. Oh, God damn it. And John calls up Steve and is like, hey, there is a crocodile that we've heard about somewhere in northern Queensland. I can't quite remember near Ingham on Cattle Creek, which like Steve knew very well. And he's a big crocodile. He's like 14 or 15 feet.

And we have heard that people are taking, they're using him for target practice and he's probably going to get shot any day. Oh, God. Would you be interested in catching him and like relocating him or? Never hear of cans? I know. It's, uh, yeah, it's sad. I don't like to hear it either. But they, he's like, we could catch him, relocate him.

Also, we would love to film you doing it and make a documentary about it. And Steve was like, sure, let me ask. my wife, who I literally just married and see if she's cool with it. Good instinct. And apparently, by all accounts, Terry was like, yeah, let's do it. So, yeah, they go on this trip. They go look for this crocodile. And Terry's kind of like introduced to this crew who she'll end up spending so much of

her life with, especially her life with Steve. So there's John Stanton. He's there filming. West Mannion, who is Steve's best friend and who is still like part of the management team at Australia Zoo today. He's like a bit younger than Steve. Steve was like his mentor for a long time. And they go up to Cattle Creek. And one story that like kind of irritates me a little bit from Terry's perspective,

is a lot of these times, I'm very aware that Terry is like the only woman on these crews. Like she is spending a lot of time with a lot of guys. And which isn't they seem like great guys. But still, it's just like not the same. Terry says they're on this trip to catch this crocodile. And she says at the end of the of an exhausting first day, the six of us, Steve, myself, Wes, John and his two-person crew gathered wearily around the fire. I looked up and realized that five pairs of eyes were looking at me.

Wait a minute. Oh, I get it. I'm the only woman here. I'm supposed to be cooking dinner. And she doesn't elaborate on that. She's just like, oh, that's how this works. I guess this is what I'm doing. And she starts trying to, but like the camp gear is stuff she's not used to.

So to Steve's credit, he jumps in and he's like, how did I cook? from now on. And she's like, yeah, sounds great. So he like takes over cooking from Terry, which I'm like, okay, that's, I'm glad you did that. And, uh, I like that too. I know, right? And there's like a sweet story too where they went on their first camping trip together and she like offered to help him cook. She was like, hey, do you need help with dinner? And he's like, no, no, no. Like my trip, my treat. And he like cooks their meals the whole time. I'm like, okay. I like, I like, I like, I like Steve. He just, I like where his head's at.

So they're looking for this crocodile and they think they spot him on the river. And they're like, oh, he's sitting in the water weird, like what's going on? And they realized that this crocodile has been shot already. And so they got there too late, essentially. And Terry wrote in her book, Steve was besides himself. he felt as if the crock's death was a personal failure. We filmed the crock and talked about what had happened, but eventually Steve simply had to walk away.

When I went to him, there were tears in his eyes. His death wasn't abstract to Steve. It was personal as though he had lost a friend, and it filled him with anger towards the poachers who had killed such a magnificent animal. So Steve writes like that in his book, and Terry writes about Steve in the same way, that a lot of animal deaths to Steve, like he took very personally and he would like grieve for a

very long time. Terry says how his first dog, Chili, was unfortunately shot by a farmer, I think. She said like years later, he would still like cry about chili and just be so sad about losing her. So he just had this great well of love and empathy for animals. And I mean empathy in the true meaning of like he felt this level of connection, like emotional connection with another being. Yeah, I just think this is one of Steve's most endearing traits. But so they weren't able to save this one crocodile. They heard about a couple other crocodiles.

Actually, I think there were some fishermen. that approached them or something, we're like, hey, there's these crocodiles that are, like, hanging around the boat ramp. Like, can you help us out? They catch those and relocate them. And John Staten and the crew, they film this whole thing. So when this trip finishes, John Staten pulls together the footage. And this trip, their quote unquote honeymoon is the pilot episode of the crocodile hunter.

Oh. I know. I just love this detail. It's nice to consolidate your anniversaries, you know? Yeah, true. I never thought of it that way. Like, oh, like these two big, momentous things that happened in their lives kind of happen at the same time. So, yeah, they began filming Crocodile Hunter technically then in 1992.

And then it was first release. So they finally pulled together the footage and, you know, shopped it around or whatever. First release in Australia in 1996. and then it was released in 1997 in the States. And the pilot was first on Discovery Channel. The rest of the episodes were on Animal Planet. But actually, I skipped over an important detail that when they got back from this trip, after they filmed the first episodes of the crocodile hunter, Terry and Steve,

that's when they officially took over the Australia Zoo. So another big moment in their life. Oh, God, it's all happening. I know. It's like the big things in their life, I think all. happened within a year, like they got married. Actually, they met each other. And then they filmed the first episode of Crocodile Hunter,

and then they take over Australia Zoo, which is, yeah, that's a lot for one year. And it's basically been their life's work ever since, essentially. And Terry talks about how Bob and Lynn Irwin, Steve's parents, they officially handed over ownership of the zoo to Terry and Steve. And apparently Steve just immediately dived in like he does with everything. And that's when they actually renamed it. So it was the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, and they then officially renamed it Australia Zoo when they took over ownership.

Terry says about Steve in her book, she says, he worked from dawn until well after dark when he rigged spotlights to be able to keep working. I'd never seen anything like it. He was a machine. He would go past human endurance. often I'd catch him throwing up behind a tree out of sheer physical exhaustion. Don't worry about it. I just drink too much tea this morning, he said.

I knew you'd like that. I didn't like that. After one such incident, when I expressed my concern, he continued with the job. I love it too because there's this, like, famous clip of him on some talk show and the host, it's in like the UK or something and the host says, do you ever drink coffee? and Steve Irwin's like, no, the top of my head would blow off. He's like, I drank a cup of coffee once years ago and I'm still recovering. So, yeah, I mean, it might very well be true.

But they take over Australia's Zoom. Then a few years later, in 96, 97, that's when Crocodile Hunter first debuts. And it didn't quite take off in Australia like it did elsewhere. But eventually, like, Crocodile Hunter, as we know, was like a really big hit. It was broadcast in 130 countries, I believe, estimated to reach 500 million viewers at its peak. It was Animal Planet's highest rated series. And, yeah, it was just kind of a pop culture media sensation, as you and I are both. very familiar with. I mean, like, it was one of those shows. Like, if you're just channel surfing

and you see that it's on, you're like, oh, we'll watch crocodile hunter. Yeah. And it was that TV that I feel like we don't have as much of now that was kind of like good for any occasion. Yeah. You know, like in a waiting room, in a hospital. Right. On a good day, on a bad day. You know, it's like a pretty good vibe and you're going to learn something that you're also not going to be bored. Yeah. And it was just like, I don't know. It was just good to you. It was. It still is. I've been watching a lot of crocodile hunter recently and I'm like, man, this show is really entertaining. It's so nice that it holds up. It does. And like everything, there's parts of it that I'm like, I don't love that. But then there's other, a lot of it is like, oh, this is awesome. I love watching this. I think Steve Irwin has a great message and a great intention behind it. Whether or not you agree with all of his tactics, I, you know, that's, That's definitely up for discussion.

But I think one of the few scenes that I was like, oh, I don't love it, is I understand why it was like this. So feral pigs are a big issue in Australia. I think they're a big issue here, too. That's something we have in common. Yeah. So I never like came across anything saying that Steve Irwin or his crew would like hunt feral pigs. I mean, they would have pig meat to use as lures for crocodiles. So I'm assuming, I mean, they would have hunted them at some point.

I don't know in what manner. Or at least had a guy. Yeah. I would think that Steve Irwin would have the mindset of like, I am doing this as pest control. And I am, we are doing this to help the, you know, native Australian ecology and the environment. I don't argue with that. I think the part where I got a little bit like, eh about it was the episode where they are actually trapping feral pigs.

It's a little rough to watch. And I don't think it's probably anything worse than what you would see on a pig farm. But that being said, it is still a little rough to watch. Like, they're manhandling these pigs, like in a way that's a little, for me, a little upsetting. And I'm sure someone listening is going to be like, well, okay, well, if you feel that way, then, you know, how do you feel about meat in general? And the answer to that is, I don't know. I have lots of feelings about it, and I'm still figuring it out.

I appreciate that perspective. Yeah. But that be said, you know, and then there's obviously like the showmanship thing that some people don't really aren't drawn to with Steve Irwin. But obviously it brings a lot of people in. And he had, I personally think, and I also think a lot of, his fans do feel like he had an effect on people in changing people's attitudes towards wildlife and especially predators because he spoke about top predators with so much respect and

love in a way that I don't feel like we've come across that frequently, if at all, in no, major mass media. No, because you tend to be able to make more money being like, look at this big scary shark as opposed to look at this endangered shark. Yeah, he's, But he's just so passionate and his whole attitude is really about conservation. I think the goal the entire time is like we're going to use this to our advantage to put as much money back into the zoo with the intention of conservation programs. So we're going to purchase land in Australia and turn it into conservation parks. They would purchase land and plants a bunch of eucalyptus trees and try to build up, you know, koala habitat after it had been, you know, farmland for a long time or something like that.

So there's always this goal of putting it back and trying to improve the environment and wildlife habitat as best they could or put it back into the zoo. And they were expanding the zoo too. So the Australia Zoo has grown quite a bit since. it was the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. And part of that was from the success of the show and money being put back into the zoo, which was their, you know, Stephen Terry's, it was their shared dream to like do what they could for conservation and wildlife in this aspect.

So Bindy, their daughter was born in 1998. Robert was born in 2003. And by all accounts, Steve was also like a really wonderful dad. He just, like, loved being a dad and spoke effusively about it. Like, he seems like to be very, I mean, it's hard to tell, but like, it seems like he really was very active and present in his kids' lives. And I think it kind of speaks to Bindy was very, very close with Steve as a young girl. Like, which, you know, it should be a given that a kid would be with their dad.

And yet you so rarely honestly hear about it. It's always pretty exciting. I know. That's actually, it was one of the things I was excited to share with you. It was like, did you know? I mean, it tracks, but also that Steve, like, he, like loved his wife and he loved his kids. And somehow that's like not something you come across very often. Well, it's like the best legacy you could have as a person.

Right. really is to, you know, because I feel like there's this, like, there's such a thing in history and with the sort of like alleged great men of history of like, well, he was actually like pretty horrible to be around and he abandoned his family, but he, um, discovered this polymer. So it was probably worth it. And you're like, maybe that made it harder to discover the polymer. You know, I guess this idea that like, or, you know, that historically that like love and relationships and marriages and children are the things that you sacrifice on the altar of achievement. Yeah.

But at the end of the day, like, no institution will remember you. Not really. Because it's just a collection of buildings and the people who happen to work there right now. And the letters they'll put after your name to get you to do stuff sometimes. But like the relationships that you're sacrificing for what you think is your legacy are your legacy. Yeah. So just a thought.

Yeah. I think his legacy is. continuing partially because his family, his wife and his kids, have this unending love for him, even though, like, Bindy was eight years old when he died, and Robert was only two. And they all just speak so highly of him still. And I think that speaks to why we continue to love him, because it's like, oh, he was, he was a guy who wasn't ashamed of, like, speaking really highly of his wife in public. That was something that really struck me. There was one of his clips of him on Conan O'Brien, like in the early days. And he's bringing on some animals. You know, he brings on a snake. He brings on a

lizard. And in the end, they actually bring out a crocodile or an alligator. And Terry helps to bring it out, I believe. At some point, oh, no, she helps bring out a big snake. And Conan's just sort of focused on the snake because it's huge. It's, you know, it's like wrapped around Terry's body. He's like, holy crap, what's that? And Steve is like, isn't my wife amazing? Isn't she incredible? And Conan's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that snake, though, that thing, I don't know if I really want it out here. And Steve's like, yeah, but oh, my wife, she's just the best. And, like, and he talks about her like that all the time. Like, he just adores her. And you can just see it. And, like, everything else. It's very genuine. It's not like, oh, he does this on camera. And then as soon as the

camera's off, he like ignores her. I think they genuinely had a very good marriage. And Terry, to this day, is like, yeah, he was my soulmate. She calls him my prince. And many people have asked her, like, are you planning to date again? She's like, um, who am I going to date after Steve Irwin? And like, how am I, how is anybody going to come close to that for me? She was like, I found my guy. And that was that. And he was, he was it for me. So I think that's like something to really land on with, with Steve.

It's just like how much his family meant to him and how we could all feel that. And how admirable that is for a man to like to publicly love his family. in that way. And how he's part of what we may be sensed about him that made us elevate him into sexist celebrity is that he really loved all these animals. And the twist is that he also really loved his family. Yeah, right.

What a twist. What a twist. And Steve and Terry were bringing Bindy along. You see her on the crocodile hunter. She's like a little baby in like a little backpack on Terry's back. And they're like out in the outback somewhere. And Steve's like catching lizards and whatnot. And Bindy's like there the whole time.

Or they'll be on like a dingy out on a river at night or whatever. And Bindy's with them. And I guess actually maybe this is like a good time to pivot into like one of maybe the bigger controversies that Steve ever had during his career. And I think part of. this was the fact that he was so big at this time. And I think that he was starting to experience backlash as all overly popular things do. Yeah. So when Biddy was born, there was an instance where Steve took Bindy as a baby into a crock demonstration with him at the Australia Zoo. And here's the

thing. Here's the thing that this is when she was a baby, but no one said anything about that, I think, because it was still kind of early-ish in the crocodile hunter days. And there just wasn't so much media focus on him. So this like came and went without any fanfare. Right. Look old man takes baby near crocodiles. Yeah. And I only found out about it reading Terry's book. And I was like, huh, I didn't realize he did this with Bindy because a few years later, in 2004, like not long after Robert was born. He was very young. He was only like a few months old. He did the same thing with Robert. And I don't know if you remember that. Vigly, as you're saying it, but like not in a Michael Jackson dangling a baby over a balcony kind of a way. Well, it's interesting

because people think, I guess the Michael Jackson incident happened not long before. Where were like, oh my God, it's an epidemic of people holding their babies in the wrong place. Yeah, I think it was seeing Steve with baby Robert in his arms and like a piece of meat in his other hand in front of a crocodile. It literally reminded people of the Michael Jackson incident. So Steve got a lot of heat for it. I think it was one of the first times where he had received such negative media attention. and it really hurt him a lot.

But it wasn't just that the negative media attention. Terry says in her book, they had child protective services called on them about the incident with baby Bob, as they call him, and kind of like being questioned of like whether or not he was a fit parent and whether they were putting their children's lives in danger. And as we just talked about,

Steve being a very proud, very loving, very present father, this really, really deeply bothered him, as you can imagine. But I don't know, I'm curious what your thoughts are on that incident. I realize as a non-parent, I really don't have a like to stand on, but I would prefer to not do that with my baby. I'm not saying I never would because I can see things getting out of hand. But yeah, I think it's good to not put the baby near the crocodiles. And even if you know all about crocodiles and it probably maybe isn't as bad as it maybe looks to the untrained eye, it's just, you know, this is why we cut grapes in half. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where I can see the public being like, hey, don't do that. That

makes me nervous. But also the point at which we try to intervene in people's lives as parents, especially by calling local authorities based on something we saw on TV or on social media at this point in time. Like that's when we start getting into like kind of the vigilante justice area. And that makes me also as nervous, sometimes more nervous than the crocodiles. Yeah. So, you know, it's a tricky area. But I suspect that it was done, you know, with no ill intent. Yeah.

Maybe not with as much forethought as would be good. But, you know. Yeah. I can see also if you. So if you are putting yourself next to dangerous reptiles all the time that you might get overly casual about it with regards to other people. Yeah, exactly. I think Steve had a very skewed idea of what was dangerous. I mean, on one hand, he was aware like, okay, crocodiles are dangerous.

He would and always said like, you know, don't try this at home. I am a skilled expert. I know what I'm doing. Blah, blah, blah. But I still think it was skewed based on his experience. I mean, with his dad, he. jumped on his first crocodile. And I mean like jumping out of a boat into a river on top of a wild crocodile when he was nine years old. Right. That does give you confirmation bias, right?

Where you're like, well, I survived doing that. So probably anyone else would. Yeah. Like he probably just didn't think like him holding the baby was that big of a deal in comparison to the other crazy stuff he does on a daily basis. Yeah. And you could also say, you know, because we're around cards all the time. We don't register them as big of a threat as they are. And, you know, that's also true. Yeah. Yeah.

It doesn't make the crocodiles any less scary to make that comparison, really. It just brings up another threat. Yeah. Yeah. Our idea of, and this is also a theme in Steve's life of, you know, he was doing crazy stuff all the time. Like stuff that is hard for us to fathom. I mean, yeah, I think there was, like Steve Rowan probably had a very different attitude towards risk in general. And this is actually, I'm glad we're talking about this because basically this is going to lead us into, unfortunately, the final part of Steve's life.

I guess one, actually one positive thing or a couple positive things before we get into it is that right before Steve died, he was like, like getting a lot more involved with scientific research and actually collaborating with researchers in Queensland. And in particular with a couple of scientists named Mark Reed and Craig Franklin. And they were involved with putting satellite tags on crocodiles to trace their swimming patterns and behaviors and to understand like how far they would actually swim, especially if they were relocated because there is this idea that like, as we talked about with relocating nuisance animals like crocodiles, there is this thought that, well, they'll just go

back to where they came from and people will be like, well, if you relocate them far enough, they won't swim back. And they were actually able to show through this scientific work with the satellite transmitters that there was one crocodile that flew, or flu, that swam, that's swam completely around Cape York in Australia. And if you're thinking of the country of Australia, and it's got like kind of those two like rabbit ears at the top is how I think of them. And one of those ears is the Cape York Peninsula. Crocodile swam around the entire thing after it was relocated. And this was 400 kilometers, 250 miles. That's a lot of miles. It's a lot of miles. And someone with short little legs like that.

Although I guess they're probably not using their legs primarily to swim, question mark. No, they use their tail actually. Right. Well, the tail is a lot stronger, I would imagine. Well, I guess supposedly when they're going like full sprint with their tail, they can go as fast as a dolphin. I don't know.

I know. Steve said. Don't tell me that. Steve said this in one of his interviews with Cohn O'Brien, which I I think it's one of my favorite clips of him actually explaining this research project. And he was so excited about it. And I think he was just like so, I mean, he had collaborated with researchers over the years. But this work that he did, he was a co-author on a couple of papers about it.

So if you go to Google Scholar and type in Steve Irwin, he comes up a couple of times. There's one satellite tracking reveals long distance coastal travel. and homing by translocated estuarine crocodiles. And he's one of the co-authors on that. And then the other one is, I can't say this word, estuarine, estuery, like an estuary, estuarine. That's going to be the new trendy name, estuarine. It's like aquamarine.

Right. Estuarying crocodiles ride surface currents to facilitate long distance travel. So he's a co-author on both of these papers. one or both of them were published right after he died. He's a co-author, and then, like, in that first paper, they acknowledged the crock team from Australia Zoo for their support and their assistance in capturing crocodiles, and they filmed some of it for crocodile hunter episodes, too.

So, yeah, he was, like, getting into this, which to me is like, oh, I think this was, like, kind of the direction he was wanting to get more into of like this collaborative research to understand crocodile behavior better so that they could better steward crocodiles in the wild and contribute to the body of knowledge about about crocodiles. So he was still filming crocodile hunter, though it had gone away from like seasons of like, oh, here's, you know, 10 episodes or whatever to specials. So kind of like little mini documentaries, but they were still in the Crocodile Hunter brand. And in 2004 or sorry, 2006, he was up north in Queensland off of Port Douglas.

And he was filming for one of the specials called Oceans Deadliest, which is an unfortunate name. But he was there with Philippe Cousteau. That was the co-star or like a co-host, I guess, of the special. So, Filippe Custo is the grandson. Is that Jack Custo's grandson? Okay. Yeah. And the Custos are an ocean dynasty, I guess you could say.

Yeah, Jacques Custo, one of the original kind of nature filmmaker personalities, though obviously focused more on the ocean. But Steve and Philippe were filming for the show. Terry and the kids were in Tasmania at the time. And Terry always, I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things when you're looking back on someone after they've died and your interactions with them. And Terry says in her book many times that she and Steve said they always had this feeling that when they were apart, bad things would happen. But if they were together, they would be okay.

but so he was out filming on, I believe it's called Bat Reef, which is on the Great Barrier Reef. And they just finished like some segment. And I think they were diving. And then Steve put on snorkel gear and got back in the water. And he found a stingray, believe it's called a short tail stingray. And they're huge. These stingrays are like they can get enormous, like a meter across, like three or four feet across. I don't know how big this one was.

But he asked one of the cameramen to get in the water, said, hey, I found the stingray. Like, let's check it out. He's approaching it. And the theory is that the way that Steve's shadow kind of hit the stingray, may the stingray feel defensive. and the stingray then did its defensive maneuver, which is to basically stab with its stinger. And it is so extraordinary to me how much of a freak accident this is.

I cannot stress enough. So the stinger, the barb of the stingray, it hit Steve square in the chest, in the heart. And I called my friendly, neighborhood shark scientist here in Newport, Taylor Chapel, to talk to him about this. And I asked him, and I said, how many people have died from stingrays? Like, how often has that happened? And he wasn't, to his credit, entirely sure, but he thinks it's somewhere like around 20. 20 people ever. Like, you think of how astronomically low it is for someone to be attacked

by a bear or a shark or get hit by lightning. And then this is even smaller than that. People get stung by stingrays all the time. I mean, this was a large stingray for one. But it also seems like the kind of thing where it's like, I don't know, having a fatal accident with a vending machine. And then you're like, well, how was I to anticipate that from a vending machine? Exactly.

And the reason I'm stressing this is because a lot of, the rhetoric around Steve Irwin, even now, especially right immediately after he died, there was kind of this sentiment of like, well, he was asking for it. Like, he's always like antagonizing animals. He's always getting right up in their business. Like, it was only a matter of time. And I get it. Like, that's not entirely untrue that like looking at some of the stuff he did, again, talking about the risk taking behavior. I mean, I mean, he has said on his show that he should have died, like, a few times over. Like, he's just been in so many situations that are so dangerous.

But that's why I'm like, but this instance, I don't even know if this would be because of his risk-taking behavior. Personally, I just think this was just a truly freak accident. But the thing that Taylor told me that I thought was interesting, because I was like, so Stingray Barbes have venom. in them. It hurts to get stung by one. I was stung by a very small stingray in California on my foot once, and it hurts. And I don't even think I got like a full sting from it. I think it just kind of glanced me. And it really hurts. I was like, is it the venom that like has killed people? Do you think that's what happened with Steve? And he said that what he understands is that some of the other people that have died from stingray stings is that they actually die from like a secondary thing.

like an infection. So it's not actually from the stinging event itself. So it's like even within the 20 people in all of history, like recorded history that have died from a stingray, even a smaller number that I don't know what that number is, died in the way that Steve Irwin died. And that was that he got the barb directly into his heart. And he pulled it out, the barb out,

I'm sure because it had venom, it was, and it hurt, and it probably was like, well, you know, you just, you're not sure what to do. And I think, you know, the people that were there, I mean, I can't even imagine what that would have been like to be there with him, like this superhero kind of person who seems like he's cheated death a million times before. And then you just think you're going for a quick. snorkel and it was in like chest deep water like it's just the most unassuming way but it feels like it was like sort of that maybe the like the you're wrong about of all this is that it was kind of

seen at the time as like you know man who loves donuts slips on a donut and actually it's like man who loves donuts dies in a car accident you know that just there's well I don't know if that's or like quite right struck by lightning or something like yeah the odds of everything lining up the way they did were so bizarre that like, yes, probably the worst way to try to honor his legacy would be to take it as a cautionary tale against being with wildlife and in nature. Yeah, I think he nailed it.

And the other thing to add to just how bizarre this, it was for him to die in this way is that it could have been a matter of like centimeters, like if, if this stingray had stung him like almost anywhere else, he might have lived. I mean, who knows? It's a lot of hypotheticals, but it really was just a, like, a one in a, I don't know, a one in a billion or something kind of situation. It was so shocking. And there was this kind of discourse around it, as I mentioned, some people had some really

negative takes on it in that like, well, yeah, he was kind of asking for it. I feel for Terry and and her kids at the time because there was so, as you can imagine, you know, he was really at the peak of his career and then for him to die in this way. And then they just had cameras on them all the time. You know, she made her way back from Tasmania with with the kids. And there's just like this moment where they're in like a car. And she's talking with West Mannion, I believe. Like this is like their first kind of download of what's going on. And the kids are in the car. And Wes suddenly just like turns off all the lights in the car. And she's like, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, you know, the cameras are over there. And they can like see us talking. And they can see the

kids. And like, he's just like, he was just like trying to protect their privacy. Recently, like, I've just had, I don't know, been very close or witnessed, you know, very, very, very sudden tragic losses of people that seem kind of larger than life in my in my own life. And it's a very particular type of grief to just suddenly lose someone out of the blue. And someone that you thought was, you know, indestructible. Yeah. I'm getting emotional talking about it. And it's a little, I'm a little embarrassed, but it's okay.

No, it's very embarrassing to have emotions on this show. I know. the first person who's done it here. Yeah. I know. I'm kind of aghast. I know. I know.

And that's the thing. Steve wouldn't care. Steve would be so into it. He would. He cried on camera many times. Like, I forgot to mention that in 2000, he lost his mom in a car accident and it really, really devastated him. I mean, and he would, you know, in interviews talking about his mom, he would, he would cry about

her. And he would, he's just very. He was a very emotional guy. And I mean that in all the full spectrum of his emotions, though I can't say that I feel like I've seen or come across many stories of him being like really angry. I mean, I've heard of him being frustrated, I guess, you know, but I'm sure he was angry at points. But he had so much, so much patience, which I think you have to have if you're working with animals.

Like, because animals don't understand you. and you can't communicate with them. Especially big, strong ones whose jaws you have to hold shut while you give them a bath. Yeah, and you have to be able to think from their perspective of like they're just, they're scared. They don't know what's going on, you know? They just think I'm trying to hurt them. So you have to have like an extraordinary amount of patience. And I think that's from what I can see and what I've read, like I just haven't really come across.

anything where Steve has gotten like really angry other than like directing anger towards poachers. I mean, that seems to be like the main thing that pisses him off is poaching. Yeah, fair enough. But the world was shocked, obviously. Yeah. And also there's a sense of it being someone who you had a bond with as a child potentially. It would be like, you know, losing Bill Nye or something. Right.

Check on Bill Nye. Yeah. Yeah, someone that's beloved. And like I said, like peak of his career. So all of a sudden, he's gone. And I think immediately people, I mean, besides a few people, I guess, Jermaine Greer published something like the day he died, basically saying like he was an awful person, which is quite the thing to read. Did she have like evidence or was it more of a cultural analysis? It was more a cultural analysis. Yeah. It was. more of that. It was more like watching his show. It wasn't anything like, oh, he did this and said this out off, you know, backstage or whatever. It wasn't that. It was more just. Fair enough,

Chamey, you've given us you a two cents. Right. Now step to the side. While then she literally published it the day he died from what I can tell. I'm like, whoa, okay. I mean, like, this is the industry that I used to be in where everyone's trying to make the same $300. And when somebody dies, everybody pricks up their ears. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, how can I say something? Right. I will just say, so Steve Irwin had this memorial service, which I highly recommend watching. Yeah, it's very sweet and very Steve.

There's lots of animals. There's lots of, so he had a, there was a private ceremony. They actually, there wasn't offer from the prime minister, John Howard. They were like, hey, we want to like have a full statement's memorial service for Steve. and his family was like, no, we're going to have a private service, but we will have like a public facing one too. And it's going to be at the zoo. Like, we're going to do it the way Steve would have wanted. It's very sweet. I do. I mean it. Like, I really love the memorial. I think there is this kind of element of the memorial that is kind of like Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy, you know, it's,

there's, it's kind of this particular lens of Australian culture. And I mean, I think, people really embrace that. And then, again, I think some people, maybe they would find it a little cringe. It would be like, well, this isn't the only thing that Australia is about. It's not like, it's not like we're all, yeah, wearing khaki and catching crocodiles. Every man, woman, and child in Australia is wearing a hat with corks on it. I feel like there was, maybe some people felt like that. But in general, Steve Irwin's legacy was like from then on, has, just kind of grown in this really positive direction. I mean, if the worst you're guilty of is,

is fostering a bit more of the stereotype of white Australian men. I don't know. We can probably live with that. Yeah. And I guess I'll say, like, as a true button to this episode, that researching Steve Irwin and researching his life and his motivations, I have felt very inspired. And, like, I have found myself,

wanting to, you know, we're stuck on our computers for work so much. And I just feel like Steve Irwin was the antithesis of that. He was outside, literally in the mud, in the sand, in the water, climbing trees. Fran, no one is stopping you from joining me on your next show while standing in some mud, you know. Well, I know. And actually, well, so. Got a rechargeable battery. Well, I just have found myself being like, what am I doing?

I live in like a beautiful place. I need to just, I need to get away from my screen and like engage with what's around me more. And I really, I'm not trying to be cheesy. Like I really am thinking of Steve Irwin. I'm like, this is what Steve would do. And I think he, you know, we'd just all be a little bit happier and healthier if we observed our surroundings. and really appreciated the flora and fauna around us, even if it's like a squirrel.

Like squirrels are... Criky. Look at that squirrel. The squirrel hunter. There you go. But I do think he has influenced me even just like researching this episode. And I think I would be a happier person

if I, you know, took my binoculars out and looked for some animals outside my front. door. I think your dogs would like you to just look at them more often. Murphy certainly would. I like, pardon, name one. Mother, please. Please take us to the beach again, Mother. So, yeah, that's what I've come away with, Steve Irwin.

Let's hear crocodile hunter. That's my crocodile hunter. He's a pretty good guy. It's a pretty good bloke. Yeah. Let's go get outside. Yes. Yep. Let's step outside.

But don't put the baby by the crocodile because that's not good for the baby. No, no, no. Not good for the baby. That's your episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to the people who make this show. Miranda Zickler is our producer and editor. Nicole Ortiz is our administrative assistant.

And our lovely guest this time was Brianna Bowman. Brianna Bowman also wants to give a special thanks to Natalie Hill, Wildlife Manager of Nature World in Tasmania, for helping to give an Aussie perspective on Steve Irwin in the zoological and conservation fields. You can see Natalie with cute pictures of Tasmanian Devils on Instagram at Nat Hill Wildlife Adventureer. Enjoy the marsupials.

We'll see you in two weeks.