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Terri Raines Irwin, the widow of Steve Irwin In 1992, Irwin married Terri Raines from Eugene, Oregon, United States. The pair had met a few months earlier, when Terri had visited the zoo on a holiday; according to both of them, it was love at first sight. Terri said at the time, "I thought there was no one like this anywhere in the world. He sounded like an environmental Tarzan, a larger-than-life superhero guy."[27] Together they had two children: a daughter, Bindi Sue Irwin (born July 24, 1998), and a son, Robert Clarence "Bob" (named after Irwin's father) Irwin (born December 1, 2003). Bindi Sue is jointly named after two of Steve Irwin's favourite animals: Bindi, a saltwater crocodile, and Sui, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier who died in June 2004. Irwin was as enthusiastic about his family as he was about his work. He once described his daughter Bindi as "the reason [he] was put on the Earth." His wife once said, "The only thing that could ever keep him away from the animals he loves are the people he loves even more."[1] Terri Irwin recently reported that Steve had an ongoing premonition that he would die before he reached age 40.[28] She wrote about this in her book Steve and Me about their lives together.[29]
In June 2004, allegations were made that he disturbed wildlife (namely whales, seals and penguins) while filming a documentary, Ice Breaker, in Antarctica. The matter was subsequently closed without charges being filed.[36] 
MV Steve Irwin approaching Melbourne in February 2008 After Irwin's death, the vessel MV Robert Hunter owned by the environmental action group Sea Shepherd was renamed MV Steve Irwin in Steve's honor.[37] Sea Shepherd is a controversial[38] [39] environmentalist group that conducts direct action operations including the sinking of whaling ships, to protect marine species and environments. Shortly before his death, Irwin had been investigating joining their 2007/08 voyage to Antarctica to disrupt Japanese whaling activity. Following his death, as an alternative the renaming of the vessel was suggested by Sea Shepherd and endorsed by his widow Terri.[40]
His comments describing Australian Prime Minister John Howard as the "greatest leader in the world" earned him scorn in the media.[41] Search and rescue effort in MexicoIn November 2003, Irwin was filming a documentary on sea lions off the coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula when he heard via his boat's radio that two scuba divers were reported missing in the area. Irwin and his entire crew suspended operations to aid in the search. His team's divers searched with the rescue divers, and Irwin used his vessel to patrol the waters around the island where the incident occurred, as well as using his satellite communications system to call in a rescue plane. On the second day of the search, kayakers found one of the divers, Scott Jones, perched on a narrow rock ledge jutting out from the side of a cliff. Irwin and a crewmember escorted him to Irwin's boat. Jones did not recognise his celebrity rescuer, as he had never seen Irwin on television. The other lost diver, Katie Vrooman, was found dead by a search plane later the same day not far from Jones' location.[42] DeathOn September 4, 2006, Irwin was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, at Batt Reef, which is located off the coast of Port Douglas in Queensland. Irwin was in the area filming his own documentary, Ocean's Deadliest, but weather had stalled filming. Irwin decided to take the opportunity to film some shallow water shots for a segment in the television program his daughter Bindi was hosting,[56] when, according to his friend and colleague, John Stainton, he swam too close to one of the stingrays. "He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat the Croc One. The events were caught on camera, and a copy of the footage was handed to the Queensland Police.[57] After reviewing the footage of the incident and speaking to the cameraman who recorded it, marine documentary filmmaker and former spearfisherman Ben Cropp speculated that the stingray "felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead." In such a case, the stingray responds to danger by automatically flexing the serrated spine on its tail (which can measure up to 25 cm/10 in in length) in an upward motion. Cropp said Irwin had accidentally boxed the animal in. "It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest. It's a defensive thing. It's like being stabbed with a dirty dagger." The stinging of Irwin by the bull ray was "a one-in-a-million thing," Cropp told Time magazine. "I have swum with many rays, and I have only had one do that to me..."[58] Initially, when Irwin's colleague, John Stainton, was interviewed by CNN's Larry King late on September 4, 2006 he denied the suggestion that Irwin had pulled the spine out of his chest, or that he had seen footage of the event, insisting that the anecdote was "absolute rubbish."[59] The following day, when he first described the video to the media, he stated, "Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here [in the chest], and he pulled it out and the next minute he's gone."[57] It is thought, in the absence of a coroner's report, that a combination of the toxins and the puncture wound from the spine caused Irwin to die of cardiac arrest, with most damage being inflicted by tears to arteries or other main blood vessels.[60] A similar incident in Florida a month later in which a man survived a stingray barb through the heart showed that Irwin's removal of the barb may have caused his own death.[61] The coroner's report has not yet been released. Crew members aboard his boat called the emergency services in the nearest city of Cairns and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to the nearby Low Islets to meet an emergency rescue helicopter. However despite the best efforts of Irwin's crew, medical staff pronounced him dead when they arrived a short time later.[56] According to Dr Ed O'Loughlin, who treated Irwin, "it became clear fairly soon that he had non-survivable injuries. He had a penetrating injury to the left front of his chest. He had lost his pulse and wasn't breathing."[62] Cairns, Queensland Irwin's body was flown to a morgue in Cairns. His wife, Terri Irwin, was on a walking tour in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania at the time, and returned via a private plane from Devonport to the Sunshine Coast with their two children.[56] Fatalities due to stingrays are infrequent and occurrences are not consistently collated.[63] The attack on Irwin is believed to be the only fatality from a stingray ever captured on film.[64] Stainton told CNN's Larry King "[The tape] should be destroyed".[65] In an ABC interview with Barbara Walters, Irwin's wife Terri said she has not seen the film of her husband's deadly encounter with the stingray and that it would not be shown on television.[66] On January 3, 2007, the only video footage showing the events that led to Irwin's death was handed over to Terri, who said that the video would never become public, and noted her family has not seen the video either.[67] In a January 11, 2007 interview with Access Hollywood, Terri said that "all footage has been destroyed."[68] Despite these statements, numerous videos, including screamers, surfaced on sites such as YouTube claiming to be footage of Irwin's death. Several pictures have also surfaced on Google Images. Production was completed on Ocean's Deadliest, which aired for the first time on the Discovery Channel on January 21, 2007. The documentary was completed with footage shot in the weeks following the accident.[69] According to Stainton, "Anything to do with the day that he died, that film is not available."[70] Perhaps to maintain the film's original purpose as a nature documentary and prevent it from becoming a documentary of Irwin's final days, his death is not mentioned in the film, aside from a still image of Irwin at the end alongside the text "In Memory of Steve Irwin".
The U.S. feed of the Animal Planet cable television channel aired a special tribute to Steve Irwin that started on Monday, 4 September 2006. The tribute continued with the Animal Planet channel showing highlights of Irwin's more than 200 appearances on Discovery Networks shows.[76] On the evening of his death, Enough Rope re-broadcast an interview between Irwin and Andrew Denton originally broadcast in 2003. CNN showed a repeat of his interview on Larry King Live, originally recorded in 2004. The Australian federal parliament opened on September 5, 2006 with condolence speeches by both the Prime Minister John Howard and the Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley. The Seven Network aired a television memorial show as a tribute to Irwin on 5 September 2006,[77] as did the Nine Network on September 6, 2006. Jay Leno delivered a tribute to Irwin, describing him as a great ambassador of Australia. Irwin appeared on Leno's talk show on more than ten occasions.[78] There were also tributes on Live with Regis & Kelly and Barbara Walters' The View; on the former show, Kelly Ripa came close to tears with her praise of Irwin.[78] Hundreds of people visited Australia Zoo to pay tribute to the deceased entertainer and conservationist. The day after his death, the volume of people visiting the zoo to pay their respects affected traffic so much that police reduced the speed limit around the Glass House Mountains Road and told motorists to expect delays.[79] BBC reported on September 13, 2006 that thousands of fans have been to Australia Zoo since Irwin's death, bringing flowers, candles, stuffed animals and messages of support.[80] In the weeks after his death, Irwin's conservation foundation Wildlife Warriors reported that thousands of people from around the world were offering their support via donations to the conservation group. Backlash against stingraysIn the weeks following Irwin's death, at least ten stingrays were found dead and mutilated, with their tails cut off, on the beaches of Queensland, prompting speculation that they had been killed by fans of Irwin as an act of revenge. Michael Hornby, a friend of the late naturalist and executive director of Irwin's Wildlife Warrior fund, condemned any revenge killings. "We just want to make it very clear that we will not accept and not stand for anyone who's taken a form of retribution. That's the last thing Steve would want," he said.[81] Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.62 Mb. Share with your friends:
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