Steve Irwin (crocodile hunter) dies..........

[Planecrazy4dis]

Was Anthony Wiggle actually there in the Crocoseum, or was he somewhere else in the zoo? To me it appeared as if he was being filmed and broadcasted on the big screen, but that could just be the way it looked from that angle. Just wondering. Anyways, it was really good seeing the Wiggles represent.

 

[Nutsy]

I think Anthony was in one of the Zoo buildings where you can have your photo taken with Steve and Terri and the snakes etc.

It didn't look like he was in the Crocoseum.. the backdrop just wasn't quite right for open air. I could be wrong, so don't quote me on this... but my guess is that Anthony was in the main building.

 

[Nutsy]

Christians fed to lyings: Irwin no convert

FOR a few days, the nation's born-again Christians were overjoyed: could it be that Steve Irwin, crocodile hunter, had become one of them shortly before a stingray's barb cut short his life?

The rumour began to circulate after Creation Ministries International, a conservative group believing in a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, reported the contents of an email from a church pastor that Irwin had "come forward" at a Sunshine Coast church two weeks before his death.

The rumour spread like wildfire. The email read in part: "Many of us will now spend eternity with him. I am sure Terri [Irwin] is comforted as a Christian in the fact that she will be with Jesus and also Steve again for eternity."

But as encouraging as it might be for Christians to know they may share heaven with Irwin, the group now concedes there is reason to doubt the conversion. The unverified story was sent out by an exuberant staff member, said the group's managing director, Carl Wieland. "Though we are able to substantiate our suggestion that Steve's wife, Terri, was a church-going Christian, the stories of Steve coming forward can, at this stage, not be substantiated," he said in a statement on the group's website.

"There is serious reason to doubt that this happened, at least not in the way that the stories claim. Each time, seemingly reliable witnesses are invoked, but they are never the actual eyewitnesses … At least one major church [believed to be a Pentecostal church in Adelaide] … announced it joyfully from the pulpit. But there again it turned out to be on the basis of seemingly reliable, almost impeccable eyewitness testimony, but testimony which could, again, not be confirmed, sadly."

A Sunshine Coast pastor, Steve Penny, said that if Irwin converted it was not at his church. Further investigation had failed to substantiate rumours of the conversion in any church on the coast, he said.

Mr Wieland said the rumour had been consigned to "well-meant urban legend". "It is, ultimately, a matter between Steve Irwin and his creator and if the event did occur, then since Terri Irwin is a believer, she will be highly motivated to let the world know."

 

[BuckyFan04]

Thanks, Nutsy, and everyone else for all of the updates!

 

[mickey4ver]

Oh for Petes sake...why are you arguing every point made? This isn't a debate, it's a thread about Steve Irwin dying. Sheesh, Nutsy was giving her opinion and relaying things she has heard, nothing more. I was able to see that without any problem. Do we all need a disclaimer at the bottom of our posts stating that we are only expressing our opinions based on what we have heard?

Amen PAW

 

[diznygirl]

Was Anthony Wiggle actually there in the Crocoseum, or was he somewhere else in the zoo? To me it appeared as if he was being filmed and broadcasted on the big screen, but that could just be the way it looked from that angle. Just wondering. Anyways, it was really good seeing the Wiggles represent.

He was in the Crocoseum. At the end of the first "True Blue" at the beginning of the service, you can see Anthony walking into place in the background. His backdrop was always those large pics of Steve that surround the arena.

I've been rewatching the service here:

http://mp3.news.com.au/bcm/irwin-funeral.html

 

[Nutsy]

Crikey!

Managing change at Australia's fastest-growing tourist attraction

Love him or hate him, Steve Irwin is one of Australia's most recognisable personalities, famed both here and abroad for his work with crocodiles, snakes and other dangerous animals. His flagship business, Queensland's Australia Zoo, has grown to employ over 200 people - over three-quarters of whom have joined in the last two years. HR manager Sandy Whitehead has loved every minute of it

In one of her staff newsletters, Sandy Whitehead refers to herself as HR manager of "the best place in the world to work", a claim that, coming from most organisations, would inspire scepticism at best and nausea at worst. But Whitehead - who is responsible for 220 keeping, operations and customer service staff at the Australia Zoo site, compared to around 50 when she started in November 2001 - tells HCA she really means it.

Steve Irwin is no ordinary boss, she says. "There's just a special feeling here that [makes you] you want to be here," she explains. "It's very exciting. We get to experience a lot of things that people may not ever experience," she says.

Like herding kangaroos, for example, one of Whitehead's preferred jobs. The global success of the Steve Irwin brand means something is always happening on-site. Irwin's media company, The Best Picture Show Company has produced more than 100 Crocodile Hunter and Croc Files TV shows for a global television audience of 200 million viewers in 35 countries. There's also been a feature movie with MGM and work with children's entertainers the Wiggles. "We have a cameraperson here every day from Steve's media company," says Whitehead, "and he's constantly filming, capturing moments around the zoo. It's as though we all come to Little Beerwah [the town in the north of Queensland where the zoo is situated] to work and we're almost on a filmset every day." Local support for the zoo is immense. It recently won a 'what's the best tourist attraction on the Sunshine Coast?' poll on local radio by a landslide.

The zoo's growth rate in terms of the number of people it employs was 78.3% for the financial year 2001 to 2002. Even with SARS, the Iraq conflict, ongoing war on terror and the Bali bombings, this figure only fell to 39.9% for financial year 2002 to 2003. "Visitor numbers are down in Australia and other theme parks haven't been going well at all," says Whitehead. "We're still hitting really terrific growth rates." With 650,000 guests last year, it's possible the zoo could have one million this year. Forty-three percent come from overseas, due to Irwin's immense popularity abroad (he travels with bodyguards in the US).

Star quality doesn't just pull punters: it also attracts staff. Hundreds contact Whitehead each month looking to work at Australia Zoo. For non-specialist roles, she uses an external recruitment company to hold a database of applicants, screened for suitability. More specialist roles are recruited in-house.

Being involved with what Whitehead calls the "Steve Irwin rollercoaster" guarantees a certain quality of culture, but it also requires a certain type of person: someone who is happy with change and doesn't expect a great deal of formality. "A lot of it comes down to the recruiting practices that we have, the induction practices and then the processes that happen in the zoo daily," says Whitehead. Recruitment is focused on behavioural rather than technical questioning.

Induction involves a presentation about the zoo's history, culture and organisational structure at the company's conference centre. "People are always really excited and [say] 'can we go and see everything now?'" says Whitehead. "We have to hold them back and get all their payroll paperwork done." It then takes a few hours, she says, to give a detailed, personalised tour of the zoo and introductions to key staff: a considerable investment of time given the numbers of new faces that have come onboard. It is meant to feel "as though you were bringing them into your own family".

It may sound too corny to be true but this is the way Whitehead says she runs her department. "It's almost as though it has its own little community," she says. "A lot of the staff live with each other. When we started, there was 20 or 30 staff together; it was very much a family and they would sit down and watch videos at night about animals or whatever. Now that we're a lot bigger, we can't do that sort of thing but there are quite a few staff married to each other; we may recruit one member of the family and then recruit the other partner. It's very pro-family." One staff couple even got married on-site.

Irwin touched on his belief in family values in a recent interview with Andrew Denton on the ABC's Enough Rope programme, saying it was inspired by a bout of severe depression following his mother's death in a car crash. Indeed, Irwin's businesses are family-owned and run by him and his wife Terri. Even their three-year-old daughter Bindi appears regularly on her father's television shows and has her own clothing label named after her, sold through Irwin's retail sites. Irwin refers to Australia Zoo director, Wes Mannion, as his "best mate" and has known Best Picture Show Company boss John Stainton, his manager, for years.

But for all the family feel of the business, Whitehead says it was initially a bit strange for Irwin to have a "human" resource person on board, his focus being so sharply on animals. Mannion had to fight to "get somebody in to look after the humans". Irwin - a man who will happily pose with his head inside a crocodile's jaw - admitted on Enough Rope to being frightened by human behaviour. Being bitten by snakes was fine but the "people factor does actually scare the living daylights out of me," he said.

It was hard for Irwin to get his head around the HR function, says Whitehead, but he was very curious in introductory talks about how she operated. Whitehead - who trained and worked as a PE teacher before going into HR and recruitment - says the two hit it off when Irwin started drawing parallels between her approach to people and his own attitude to animals. Both understood the importance of maintaining eye contact, she jokes.

Irwin is not someone who, as Whitehead puts it, "has all the pieces of paper". His parents bought the piece of land that is today Australia Zoo in 1970, running a reptile and marsupial (the passions of Irwin's father and mother respectively) rehabilitation farm. Irwin learned to catch crocodiles from an early age and took over management of the farm in 1991. He shot to fame in 1992, when Stainton captured his work on the Queensland government's rogue crocodile relocation programme in the first Crocodile Hunter series.

"He's really learnt hands on," says Whitehead, "and he wanted to know that I was going to be down to earth as well ... that I wasn't a theoretical person that was going to be doing all these psychological tests that don't mean anything to him." She maintains that it is a very hands-on place to work. On her arrival, Whitehead says there was only a handful of zoo staff with tertiary qualifications. "Now, we've brought in a few more specialists," she says. Recently, this has included hiring a graphic artist and designer to work across the business, and a vet.

The "professionalisation" of the business is just one of Whitehead's challenges. She says it is undergoing a dramatic shift, whereby plans, procedures and specifications must be re-written at the same time as the company is trying to cope with major change-management issues. Therefore, the HR department has an important internal communications role to play. It has been charged with detailing and communicating business policies and procedures throughout the company - many of which had never been formalised previously. "Before, not much had really been written on paper," she says.

"We had a group of people who were all doing lots of different jobs," she explains. "There was a staff member in the shop cleaning the toilets; someone in the office who whenever the phone rang would jump in the bus and go out to the rail station [to pick people up]." She specialised the departments, assisting each of them to develop and communicate their vision, objectives and strategy and formalise them in their procedure manuals.

Health and safety procedure is also critical at a workplace where the risks are many. "It's something we have to constantly work on," she says, and the formalisation of policy and procedure - especially as there is no precedent for much of the work undertaken at the zoo - has been vital to ensuring glowing reports from the health and safety inspectors. "When you're so practical and hands-on, you actually are really safe because you have to be," she says. "We've set the benchmark for a lot of that ... in relation to crocodiles, koalas ... we're leading the way."

Whitehead has also introduced random drug-and-alcohol testing. "It's our obligation to provide a safe workplace and it's the staff's obligation to come to work fit for work," she says. The policy is detailed at recruitment stage and has largely been popular with staff - who received an education programme so they knew what was going on, why and how it would work, before it was introduced. This is what made the difference in getting buy-in for the programme. "I can tell you now it's hugely successful," says Whitehead. "The first few times it was done, there were a few people caught out. Now, there hasn't been someone caught for a while."

It's bigger than just the obvious danger of allowing anyone to be drunk or stoned and in charge of a crocodile, she says. The zoo has thousands of people on-site at a time, with staff responsible for the welfare of large crowds. There are also bus drivers and leaf cutters - people who climb eucalypts to collect food for the koalas - whose safety is paramount. The handful of sackings Whitehead has had to make in her time has largely been concerned with safety issues too.

As might be expected, Irwin is not the kind of boss who insists on formal procedure when it comes to staff, so Whitehead has tried to keep things as face to face as possible. She has also tried to continue the Irwins' habit of saying thank you to staff as often as possible. "There's always a lot of feedback around the customer-satisfaction surveys that we run ... and we'll give the staff copies of letters that come in about them because a lot of people write in about our staff and name them." She's also introduced a 'Staff person of the month' award, which she received herself (along with a free holiday to Disneyland in the US) in Christmas 2002.

The rate of growth at Australia Zoo has meant it has been impossible to decipher any seasonality. "What we're finding is that good people that we've put on as casuals to cope with demand have been converted over to full time within three to six months," Whitehead says. She is always hiring new faces to cope with growing demand, despite a relatively low turnover rate (even though the zoo pays non-specialist staff no better than anyone else on the Queensland Tourism Award). The family value of commitment comes into play here, she says. "You'll find that loyalty from Steve and Terri ... they do reward the people who will work with them."

Not everyone has liked the speed of change. Whitehead admits some of the original staff have moved on because they preferred the way things were when it was a smaller operation and don't like what they're seeing as Irwin's fame and the company grows. But it's too late to stop it now, and a A$40m scheme to develop a 251-hectare site encompassing a zoological garden of native Australian flora and fauna, as well as significant species from elsewhere in the world, is already underway. "It's a roller coaster," says Whitehead. "You're on it, you're scared but you're happy; sometimes you want to get off because it's going too fast, but as soon as you're off you want to get back on." HC

 

[Nutsy]

What Lies Beneath Transcript

PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT: Monday, 22 September , 2003

RUSSELL CROWE: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Australian Story. He is the larger-than-life legend that leaps from your TV to teach and to fascinate. A man who embodies the purposeful strength and humour that symbolises Australia. A benefactor whose largesse affects thousands of people every year. He is a conservationist with tens of thousands of acres of natural habitat under his care. He's a staunch ally to the animals that call Australia home, and not just the cute ones. He has put himself at the service of governments and animal aid agencies worldwide. He is the publisher of scientific papers on Australian fauna. He is gifted, he is brave, he is a husband, he is a father, and he knows his wildlife. He is also crazy, crazy with a big heart. That's the kind of crazy the world needs more of. And he's also my mate. This is Steve Irwin and this is his story.

STEVE IRWIN: There's positives and negatives in all walks of life, and positives and negatives in what I do. So, to become a media icon and a very successful conservationist there's a fame factor that is attached to it. To send your message, to be famous makes it easy, right? But you also lose a lot of things that people take for granted. For example, I can't walk freely around in my zoo because the fans come and come and come and come and come and come and come and come, and then it doesn't actually stop. That's kind of, you know, one of the downsides of fame. It's very unfortunate, but you know what? You gotta take the hit, otherwise I can lay bricks if I want to. And as luck would have it, I get up really, really early in the morning. And of course, at 5:00am the gates are shut. I've got a couple of hours of daylight then. If there's any work I want to do in the zoo, I'll do it then.

DR IAN GALLOWAY: There's no doubt about it that Steve is a larger-than-life, over-the-top character. And especially on television comes across in that vein. The Steve Irwin that we see, though, is a committed conservationist - one who is involved with endangered species and has a passion for telling people the story of Australian wildlife.

Steve away from the camera is still a human being racing at 100 miles an hour. There's absolutely no doubt about that. The personality's turned down a little, but believe you me, the man you see in front of the camera is very much the real Steve Irwin.

STEVE IRWIN: People think that, you know, Steve and the Australia Zoo crew just run around out there all flamboyant and extravagant and just a little touched. It's not true. Everything is backed by good fair dinkum science. We're collecting data all of our lives. We work on endangered species.

DR IAN GALLOWAY: Queensland Museum has a long history with the Irwin family, something over 30 years and starting with the reptile park at Beerwah and dealing in those days with Steve's mum and dad.

STEVE IRWIN: My mum and dad were childhood sweethearts. My mum was a maternity nurse who had a passion for saving wildlife, and my dad was a plumber who had a passion for reptiles.

BOB IRWIN: I would describe Stephen as a monster. He was never where he was supposed to be. He was always missing. There was a time when we were to go away on a holiday, one of the very few times we would go away on a holiday. He was down the local creek chasing lizards.

STEVE IRWIN: In 1970, they pulled up roots down in Melbourne and we all came up here as a family, built the Beerwah Reptile Park.

LYN IRWIN: It was never easy. It was something we'd never done before. We'd come from Melbourne, working as plumbers, up to opening a park of animals.

STEVE IRWIN: Our house, my dad built in '72, 'cause we lived in a caravan. It was full of Joey kangaroos and koalas and snakes. You know, I even had snakes in me room. It was great. It was hard times, though, you know, in the '70s. Tourism wasn't that big and crocodiles and snakes weren't something that everyone was keen to look at. They were more inclined to be shot. And at that stage, Dad had this real burning passion for crocs, and so did I. He'd had me out there jumping crocs from when I was nine years of age. So he joined the East Coast Crocodile Management Program and he sent me up, as a young bloke, up into north Queensland to catch problem, rogue or nuisance crocs. A lot of times, the farmers would take matters into their own hands, and I saw a lot of crocs get killed, a lot get wasted. So I'd actually do what had to be done, with the backing of my dad. And that was absolutely the most incredible time of my entire life for me, my dad and my family, running round up in North Queensland catching all these crocodiles and re-releasing them and bringing them back down to the zoo.

Wes came into the scene when we were teenagers. He is my best friend.

WES MANNION: As a youngster I was obsessed with snakes, and I learnt there was a place called the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. I was there every weekend and after school and whenever I could get to the zoo. The zoo was my life, and it's been the same ever since.

STEVE IRWIN: He'll take a bullet for you. He'll jump on a croc's head for you. He'll stick his head halfway up an elephant's **** for you, mate. If that's what it takes, that's what he'll do. We grew up together. My dad took us through the wildlife arena together. I owe my life to him. And as luck would have it, I got to save his life, too. Well, over the years, we've been through a lot of stuff together. And you're dealing with dangerous animals. Probably the worst thing that ever happened was a big flood at the zoo. We were cleaning out the fence line, which is what we normally do, but we did stuff up a little. We weren't quite on the ball.

WES MANNION: It wasn't Graham's fault, by the way. He was doing what comes natural. He was with his girl. She probably went, "Go on, Graham, kill him." So he's gone, "OK, honey," and gone over. So, he just drilled me into the fence. I looked down like that and went, "Oh, no, I'm done." Waist-deep water and a 12ft croc hanging off your backside. I ripped free, and I'll never forget it. He came over the top of me, was about to grab me, and luckily I had Steve with me. If you're gonna have anyone with you when grabbed by a croc, Steve's it. He jumped on the back end of the croc. Gave me time to get out. If he hadn't have been there I wouldn't be here now.

STEVE IRWIN: I had a similar incident with Graham when he was younger and I was younger. I went in to lasso him. He grabbed me and pulled me in. He would have killed me if I hadn't landed on his head. Here's a weird thing most of us humans have, is, you know. Steve Irwin's all pretty interesting on the telly or on the movie and that, but by crikey, it's great when he gets bitten.

And now and again I do get bitten. But I haven't been killed. And it's that, you know, that sense of morbidity that people do have. There's no use sticking your head in the sand and going, "Oh, no, they're only here because, you know, I talk well." Nah, man, they wanna see me come unglued.

People ask me, "Yeah, but by catching that snake, "isn't that stressing it?" "By, you know, allowing the wombat to chase the surfers around, "isn't that teasing it?" What a beautiful time when people now actually see wildlife as having welfare issues. Yes, I'm stressing it. You can see it wants to get away. But at the same time, I'm educating millions of people about this animal.

IAN GALLOWAY: Steve's a great observer of animal behaviour. He has, in fact, written a number of articles in the 'Museum Memoirs'. Steve has also contributed a number of animal specimens. One was a turtle that turned out to be a new species and, in fact, now bears the species name of 'irwini'. Here he is, here he is! I see you, I see you! I was never one for sheilas. I'm not that good with them. Dating and all that. I was getting pretty old, too, like, nearly 30. But it wasn't worrying me 'cause I was catching crocs and I was happy. These animals date back nearly 200 million years, a long time. I came back to the zoo this one time and I'm doing a crocodile demonstration, and I look over and here's this drop-dead gorgeous sheila in the crowd staring right at me. This connection.. 'Romeo and Juliet' - you've heard it all before. Crikey, here it is happening to me, and I'm thinking, "Wow." She stayed back.

TERRI IRWIN: My background in America was working with an organisation called Cougar Country, which I founded to work with predatory mammals. And so coming to Australia and discovering this Tarzan, if you will, of a guy, I was a little bit sceptical. So after talking to him and finding out that he absolutely lives for his conservation work, I was really attracted to those ethics. That really drew me in, and I think I fell in love with his spirit before noticing those great shorts. But I did notice the great shorts too.

WES MANNION: Yeah, he went more goofy than I've ever seen him. You know, Steve isn't the sort of guy to go goofy, but he certainly got quiet and headed off into the bush per se.

STEVE IRWIN: How lucky am I to have met my absolute perfect woman? And she walked into my life. I'm in a position where some of the sexiest women in the world find me attractive, you know? Everybody loves you! I can't believe it. When I was 20, why couldn't they drag me from the jungle, or turn up in the jungle, these incredibly... .you know, the world's sexiest women? They weren't in the mangroves when I needed 'em. They weren't. My big break came when I was catching crocodiles for a living. I'd take photos of these crocs I'd caught, and everyone's, like, "Oh, not more croc photos." So my dad bought me an old video camera, you know. Then, and only then, people went, "You're kidding me. "That is just amazing."

JOHN STAINTON: I met Steve in the late '80s doing TV commercials, and I'd used some animals from the Queensland Fauna and Reptile Park, as it was then named. He'd given me about 16 videotapes that he'd recorded catching crocodiles. So one night I got home and watched this tape till 3:00am in the morning. And at the end of that, I was so amazed by the vision I'd seen. It was so different, it was so unique, he came across so well. It was like...it was just amazing, what I was feeling.

STEVE IRWIN: We did the first two shows, and, oh, crikey, I find them embarrassing. And I was struggling. John comes up to me and he goes, "Stevo..."..this is what you've gotta do, mate. Don't change. "Just be natural, just be you."

JOHN STAINTON: I didn't want to imprint my feelings or my direction on Steve's character and persona. I just wanted him to remain exactly as he was from that videotape at 3:00am in the morning. Probably, in the terms of 'Crocodile Hunter', I'm a control freak of everything over the production. Steve and I have a great working relationship. Um, it's almost like a marriage. I don't interfere in his side of things, he doesn't interfere in... He never sees the show until it's finished.

TERRI IRWIN: I think the amazing thing about John is that he does have to be in control. He can also challenge Steve.

JOHN STAINTON: Um, I'm probably one of the few people that knows Steve that well that I know all the buttons to push. Don't tell him, but I can actually work around him because I know how he thinks and feels.

By '95, we'd got to 10 episodes. The funding of them was quite a problem. The money you have to get is from the UK or America.

STEVE IRWIN: I have got a pretty unique style. Historically speaking, when you're looking at wildlife documentaries, it's more or less this, you know, very David Attenborough, where there's. .the 'voice of God'.

But you know I’m hitting at another angle. My demographics are completely different. For example, you know, little tiny kids only this big, um, hatchlings that have just hatched out. They're into it, and so's Grandma and Grandpa..

JOHN STAINTON: In the meantime, the Discovery Network in America were starting a new network that they'd called Animal Planet. Animal Planet, who then was pretty small - 250,000 subscribers. By May the following year, their subscriptions had moved up into the millions. In 2003, I think they've hit over 80 million subscribers. That's the fastest-growing cable network ever in the world. And a lot of that has been attributed to 'Crocodile Hunter'.

STEVE IRWIN: You know, there's a lot of money generated off the 'Crocodile Hunter'. A heck of a lot, millions. It's a lot of money in anyone's terms. Money that you'd never be able to achieve with a wildlife sanctuary, so it means the zoo actually was able to grow. And here we are right now, probably one of the most well-known zoos in the entire world.

GRAHAM WEBB: I think Steve Irwin is really a wonderful Australian, that he's achieved things that most people even wouldn't dream of trying to achieve. And so he influences people and so it is really important that he does so responsibly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Often if you pursue animal rights or welfare as the prime priority, the cost is conservation. He gives the impression that the only approach to crocodile conservation is total protection, and that's not gonna work. People who farm crocodiles, for example, in the NT - number one, they use the crocodiles sustainably. Number two, they create wealth and employment. Number three, they put value on crocodiles. In the eyes of the community that's very important.

STEVE IRWIN: If you look at the people who attack me, perhaps you will see a wildlife perpetrator cloaking himself in the camouflage of, "Oh, this is science. Oh, this is about sustainable use."

GRAHAM WEBB: I don't see them as bandits or villains or anything else. I see them as just one part of the process of conserving crocodiles.

STEVE IRWIN: They're on some crusade, these wildlife perpetrating people, where they think that, you know, by eating crocodiles and whales that we'll actually save the world, and that is bull****, and that is bad, and it is something that must stop, and it is something that I fight vehemently.

IAN GALLOWAY: Steve's put a large amount of money where his mouth is, and you need a large amount when you've got such a large mouth. But there is no doubt about it that he has shown great commitment to nature conservation. He's purchased land in a number of different States, looking at areas that are very sensitive environmentally and looking at programs for endangered species.

TERRI IRWIN: We get a salary out of the zoo, like everybody else has a wage. But what was funny is when we first started filming 'Crocodile Hunter', and Steve and I said, "Everything 'Croc Hunter' goes into conservation - "the merchandise, the videos, the shows, the sponsorship, "everything 'Crocodile Hunter' does." It was years before we made any money. Now that we're so successful with the project, it's a point of pride. There are varying degrees of success in our life, but we don't accept failure - there will be no failure.

STEVE IRWIN: I never wanted to be a dad. I couldn't really give a rip. And now I am the proudest father, I've got to tell you. Oh, I just... I can't dwell on her for too long or I start bawling. In the field, mate, I've got a photo. I've got a photo of my daughter and I can just sit there and start crying just looking at her. Who would have thought someone as ugly as me could bring into the world something so beautiful, such a treasure? And so I've been asked about philosophies of fatherhood and how to be a good parent and all that, and to tell you the truth, mate, all I do is just treat her exactly how I would want to be treated. She wants to have chocolate, Mum's not looking - "Here, have the whole block." And you know what? It works out. She's not a chubby, little, fat chocolate freak kid.

JOHN STAINTON: The movie that we did last year called 'Collision Course' was a great turning point for us.

STEVE IRWIN: I realised, though, that I'm not a Hollywood movie actor. I'm not even in the same boat race, mate. The promotion of the movie would have easily been one of the most anxious moments of my entire life. And it never stopped. It was, like, weeks of, um, torture.

JOHN STAINTON: The whole trip around America was made a lot easier by having Andrew Bernstein along, who was head of publicity for MGM. He's done a lot of stars, Tom Cruises, all these sort of people.

ANDREW BERNSTEIN: Rarely do we do a tour this extensive for a film. You know, I've travelled with some other celebrities as well, but I have to say Steve was the biggest star I've ever worked with. Being with him and seeing the people in hotel lobbies in the morning when we leave, signing autographs, the fans at the radio stations, the security that we needed to get Steve in and out public buildings. It was incredible. I mean, we live in a very sort of celebrity-driven culture. It's everywhere on the news, but I don't think... I certainly wasn't prepared for the impact that Steve had. We had him do a local radio show called the Steve Harvey Radio Show which is very, very popular with the African-American listeners. The energy in that studio was over the top. Steve Harvey has fans that come into the studio to watch.

He told I don't know how many millions of listeners in Los Angeles. I think people mostly tune in 'cause he's so over the top. But that's Steve and that's why we love him and that's why, you know, he captures the hearts of America.

TERRI IRWIN: We were very sad three years ago to lose Steve's mother in an automobile accident, and I think, because she was so young, just in her 50s, and I think that was, and still is, the most difficult point for Steve. It's been, um, an insurmountable obstacle.

JOHN STAINTON: And you went through those periods of thinking, "Wonder if he'll ever snap out of it?" He just didn't want to do anything, didn't want to work. Turbulent times. We didn't know whether we'd ever go on with 'Croc Hunter' at that point.

STEVE IRWIN: She got to see the end result. She got to see where her Steve went to. She got to see where I got to. And I'm so glad of that. It would have been such a tragic loss for her not to see the result of her love, um, and passion, and...and hard work. I mean, I was hard work, mate. I wasn't easy. Crikey, I was more hard work than you can possibly imagine. And, ah, she got there. She actually...she made it to see me flourish and become this incredible wildlife warrior. I'm pretty well on an emotional roller coaster. My highs are highs, and my lows are...um, crying level. So the whole making of the movie was like a pinnacle of success, but also a very difficult time of my life because I lost my mum during it, then...bang! I get hit, and, um, and I cry.

One of the greatest battles that I've got is trying to keep Bindi normal, like, spending as much time as she wants with other kids, but also, by the same token, taking her everywhere. Take her out of school - if I'm jumping on crocs, then, by crikey, I want her jumping on crocs with me. The global thirst for Bindi television is incredible. We don't let her do too many interviews, we don't let her do too many photo shoots. John has got the best idea on what is good television, what isn't.

JOHN STAINTON: When it comes to Bindi, I'm really quite protective of how much exposure, you know, she gets. I could actually do a show with her tomorrow. The network would pick it up tomorrow, but that decision has to be hers.

TERRI IRWIN: Well, I think our life isn't quite the 'Truman Show'. We do go home and that's where we draw the line. And I think home is really nice with Steve. We love it, we embrace it. We have an evening together and we don't talk about all the problems and dramas and cry on the floor, about, you know, animals that need our help. We just concentrate on being a family.

STEVE IRWIN: When I see what's happened all over the world, they're looking at me as this very popular, wildlife warrior Australian bloke. And yet back here in my own country, some people find me a little bit embarrassing. You know, there's this... they kind of cringe, you know, 'cause I'm coming out with "Crikey" and "Look at this beauty". Just say what you're gonna say, mate. You know, is it a cultural cringe? Is it, um, they actually see a little bit of themselves, um, when they see me, and they find that a little embarrassing? I'm fair dinkum, like kangaroos and Land Cruisers, winged keels and bloody flies! I think we've lost all that. I think we've all become very, sort of, money people.

TERRI IRWIN: I think the Australian culture is constantly evolving. Now what we're learning is that when you finally achieve success we need to applaud that instead of saying, "Oh, this guy who was struggling has finally made it. "Now I don't like him anymore." Instead of your neighbour with the Lamborghini getting a key down the side, you need to say, "Mate, how did you get that Lamborghini?! "I wouldn't mind one of those. "Crikey, I've been driving the old ute for 20 years now."

STEVE IRWIN: And then you've got the detractors having a go at me. You know, "Taking tourism back to the Stone Age." It seems to me that they're actually trying to promote nice beaches, cosmopolitan cities, cafe latte. That's in every country. What haven't they got? They haven't got kangaroos, haven't got koalas, haven't got saltwater crocs, mate.

WES MANNION: I think, you know, it's like, um, anyone says anything bad about you, of course it hurts, and that's one bad thing about being in the public eye, I guess. You need a bit of a thick skin, 'cause, yeah, I'm sure it hurts.

STEVE IRWIN: I do get a lot of solitude, peace and tranquillity from my sport, which is surfing. You get out there, it's just you against the waves. There's no paparazzi, there's no fan base, and it gives me a chance to recuperate and regenerate. I think I've actually got animals so genetically inside me that there's no way I could actually be anything else. I think my path would have always gone back to or delivered me to wildlife. I think wildlife is just like a magnet, and it's something that I can't help.

 

[popeyeohoh]

I don't know if this has been answered for sure or not

Wes Mannion was married to another zoo employee named Tara. She no longer works there.

He married Jodi on May 29, 2004. Together they have a son Reilly. I have been unable to find a birthdate.

 

[Nutsy]

Riley Mannion was born in 2005, but not sure of the exact date.

 

[dmslush]

While I was looking over the croc hunter site, I ran across this picture, and thought it was so cute.

 

[Nutsy]

While I was looking over the croc hunter site, I ran across this picture, and thought it was so cute.

That's a good one.. I actually think Terri looks good with her hair up like that.. not the colours, but you can see her face etc and it seems to sut her. Check out Mr. Bob tho...doesn't he look like his Daddy.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

I don't know if this has been answered for sure or not

Wes Mannion was married to another zoo employee named Tara. She no longer works there.

He married Jodi on May 29, 2004. Together they have a son Reilly. I have been unable to find a birthdate.

Thanks, that makes me feel better! You really get the sense from the interviews that Steve was family to Wes, I hated the idea of him facing the loss alone!

I've been trying to find a stuffed crocodile to take on my next Disney trip with me in tribute to Steve (I usually take a stuffed Stitch, and he poses for pictures around the World), but it is crazy how hard it is to find one! Apparently dogs, cats, and horses you can find at any toy store, but good luck finding a croc!

 

[Nutsy]

Terri Irwin interview to be 'cleansing'

Terri Irwin's first media interviews since the death of her husband Steve will be a "cleansing" experience, a close friend says.

Mrs Irwin and her eight-year-old daughter Bindi are due to talk to US news queen Barbara Walters in Brisbane for a one-hour special to be aired on America's ABC television network next Wednesday.

Walters reportedly arrived in Brisbane on Friday morning.

The Nine Network will also broadcast "an exclusive Australian interview" by Ray Martin with Mrs Irwin and Bindi next Wednesday.

Mr Irwin's long-time friend and manager John Stainton said the interviews would help Mrs Irwin grieve.
She has yet to speak publicly about the death of her husband.

"Talking to someone totally outside is probably a good thing because when you're with just family members and the same people every day, you need that fresh voice to say well `tell us about this, let's relive this again'," he said.

"That's going to be hard, but it's also sometimes a cleansing thing as well to get something out there and off your chest.

"Terri is a good speaker. I think she'll be really strong, she'll hold up really well."

Mr Irwin, 44, died when he was struck in the chest with a stingray barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef on September 4.

Mr Stainton said while Bindi had a starring role during her father's memorial service at Australia Zoo's Crocoseum on Wednesday, Mrs Irwin had been too distraught to speak.

But he said the public outpouring of love and support shown to the family that day would help Mrs Irwin speak for the first time.

"She couldn't believe the feeling of love and warmth that was in that Crocoseum. That alone for anybody would just be such a support base for you," he said.

Mr Stainton said he understood the interviews would happen over the next few days, but they wouldn't happen "until Terri is ready".

"That's the deal - that she will only talk when she wants to talk," he said.

 

[Nutsy]

... this is the last touching photograph of Steve Irwin on his final crocodile hunt last month with daughter Bindi and father Bob at Cape York







'I fell apart after True Blue': Bob Irwin



STEVE Irwin's father Bob said he held his emotions in check until John Williamson sung True Blue at today's memorial service for his son.



Bob Irwin said Williamson's song, which he modified to include references to his son and Australia Zoo, was Steve's favourite.



"I was coping fairly well until John sang that song and then I fell apart,'' he said after the service.



"If our roles had been reversed Steve would have fallen apart as well because he really loved that song."




Bob Irwin, 66, moved with wife Lyn and Steve from Victoria to Queensland in 1970 to establish a reptile park on the site at Beerwah which eventually became Australia Zoo.



Bob Irwin said afterwards that his son's widow, Terri, was pleased with the event, organised by Steve's manager, John Stainton, and Australia Zoo staff.





"John had done such a great job putting it all together and the people involved obviously loved Steve.

"I think today has come to a peak and I think I will probably fall apart from here on in probably for some time to come.''

 

[DisneyMissy318]

Nutsy...

I want to thank you again for keeping us in the US posted on the local Aussie news about Steve and his family.

Based on the time you spend to find the articles and post them - and to answer our questions - I want to offer my apologies for the posts that seem to go after you personally.

Thanks again.

 

[Figment22]

Irwin's best friend and business manager John Stainton said later that Bindi had written every word of her speech and had insisted on reading it "because she was scared that she would forget something".

"Nobody interfered with her, I didn't have part of it," he said.

Wow! I had wondered who had written the speech Bindi gave at the memorial. I kept saying to my husband, "She's only eight!" I was so proud of her; I can't even imagine the pride that Terri felt even admidst her terrible grief. What an amazing child!

I thought that the memorial was wonderful. I kept thinking that I was glad that Terri chose not to have the state funeral which would certainly have been a more somber public affair. This was so much more a celebration of Steve Irwin's incredible life.

Thanks for linking the article, Nutsy.

 

[BelleBoo&AmisMum]

Thanks, that makes me feel better! You really get the sense from the interviews that Steve was family to Wes, I hated the idea of him facing the loss alone!

I've been trying to find a stuffed crocodile to take on my next Disney trip with me in tribute to Steve (I usually take a stuffed Stitch, and he poses for pictures around the World), but it is crazy how hard it is to find one! Apparently dogs, cats, and horses you can find at any toy store, but good luck finding a croc!

I found a few stuffed crocs

 

[IwasatWDWforamonth]

Thank you for the updates Nutsy.


Last night I had a dream about Steve I was at the zoo and was crying because I wanted to buy the True blue cd and Steve who was also crying came up to me and gave me a hug, it felt so real I woke up wanting to donate more to his wildlife warriors.

 

[Nutsy]

Nutsy...

I want to thank you again for keeping us in the US posted on the local Aussie news about Steve and his family.

Based on the time you spend to find the articles and post them - and to answer our questions - I want to offer my apologies for the posts that seem to go after you personally.

Thanks again.

Thanks so much for that... I will admit that there were some things I didn't post after all the attacks the other day. I just didn't feel comfortable here anymore.. so I didn't post any updates... I know those of you who didn't attack lost out, but I really couldn't bring myself to post.

Anyway, it's nice to know that it was all appreciated by some.. Not that that was the reason I was doing it mind you. I knew how much the US loved Steve and I thought I might be able to give you some info you'd not hear over there.

To all those who have posted their thanks... You are most welcome... It's just nice to know that you perahaps learnt a bit more about Steve and the family etc.