The Cassandra Complex

It sounds like a bad joke: "Crocodile Hunter Killed by Stingray". Though he’s fabulously popular in the States, in Australia Steve Irwin has been a source of massive cultural cringe and a butt of jokes. I’ve already heard a few in particularly poor taste about his death – I even laughed at them. I am a bad person. :(

Now that he’s died after being stabbed through the heart by a stingray while filming a documentary, politicians and assorted others are lavishing praise on him, especially on his efforts on behalf of Queensland tourism. I did find it especially ironic to hear a Liberal party politician praise him for being such an outstanding conservationist. I wasn’t aware that was high on their list of priorities…

Anyway, Andrew Denton, one of the ABC’s most insightful interviewers, interviewed Steve Irwin on his show “Enough Rope” in 2003. You can find the transcript of the interview here. Denton introduced him as follows: “If you spliced the genes of Sir David Attenborough with those of the cartoon Tasmanian devil, you'd come up with something like my first guest.” That mental image made me smile.

There were a couple of things he said that I thought were the most interesting. One was on the fact that Australians generally do find him embarrassing. This was what he had to say about it:

Absolutely. I'm very embarrassing to look at. You know why? Here's why I'm embarrassing. Because there's a little bit of me in everybody. There really is, you know? I'm like the boy that never grew up. Um, I'm very, very passionate about what I do. I mean, I love what I do. I'm so... I wake up in the morning on fire. And people are like, "God, give this guy a Valium or something," you know? "Can't he have a bad day?" And...and I'm not. And I'm not. And I guess people...especially Australians, you know, they're so "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Stevo. Yeah, yeah, whatever," you know? You know, Australians are like that. They're very "Yeah, take it or leave it, whatever" type thing. "No, he's too hypo. Bloke's on fire," you know? Yeah, so I guess, um, that little bit of me in everybody kind of must be embarrassing, yeah.

I think he’s half hit the nail on the head – Australians are very laid back and found his full on way of speaking and acting a bit much. But I think it’s because he came across as a bad cultural stereotype. We all had a suspicion he was faking it, that it was a Crocodile Dundee style show to make money in the States.

But everyone that knew him has said he really was like that. He must have been an exhausting person to know!

What actually prompted me to look up the transcript of the interview, however, was all the conservationist talk. I vaguely remembered that he’d said something about that in the interview, and wanted to have another read of it.

Here’s what he said.

You know, easily the greatest threat to the wildlife globally is the destruction and annihilation of habitat. So I've gone, "Right, well, how do I fix that? Well, making a quid here. People are keen to give me money over there. I'll buy it. I'll buy habitat." And I reckon the only thing wrong... Now, how's this? The only thing wrong with, you know, wildlife in Australia is that I don't own it. Imagine how many kangaroos and crocodiles I could have if I owned Australia? It's, um... My wife is an American so she's got this, er... She's, um...you know, she's a good capitalist. And, er, she's very clever with money. Me, I'm not that clever and I don't really give a rip, but, er, she is. And, um, so whenever we get a...a, um...enough cash and enough...and a...and a chunk of land that we're passionate about, bang, we buy it.

What we're trying to do is we're trying to set an example to the world that, um, every single person can make a difference. Particularly those in the, um, in the political arena, um, those that have zoological facilities, any, you know, multinationals, any millionaires. They can all make a difference by buying chunks of land. And, in addition to that, every single person - man, woman and child, no matter what walk of life you're in, whether you're a, um, a fisherman, a janitor, um, Steve Irwin, the Croc Hunter - you can make a difference in wildlife by simply not purchasing wildlife products. Because today, Andrew, the wildlife perpetrators, they're hard to spot, mate. But what it is, these wildlife perpetrators now kill animals and call it 'sustainable use'. That, "Oh, let's kill crocs, turn them into belts and that's sustainable," you know? That isn't sustainable. Since when has killing wildlife saved anything? So, I'm a wildlife warrior through and through. And buying land means: A. that we're going to be able to get animals back if, and or when they become highly endangered; and B. getting out into the world, taking you, the audience, with me, having an adventure, and making it exciting. Otherwise, you're stuck with the demographics that, say, David Attenborough's got which is a bit smaller than what I got. And changing people's opinions on wildlife.

How's this? For the first time in history, mate, I've just been involved with an issue where people were worried about the welfare of a shark. How's that? For the first time in history. Yay! Astounding. Absolutely astounding. A tiger shark. And, um, admittedly the tiger shark was doing great. But her name was Bonnie...Bonnie. She was 14 foot. You know, I helped capture her and release her back into the wild. The first time in history! People are seeing crocodiles and snakes as...as animals that have welfare issues, which is fantastic.

So I believe if I can secure enough habitat, then there will always be places for the animals to go when they've been annihilated throughout their habitat. Because, basically, mate, the human population is going off. It's just a bit too rapid for the old Mother Earth to keep up with, mate. And, um, so this is my way of helping her out.

So even though I cringe when I see a picture of him in that “Crikey!” astonished-looking pose, I think this guy was alright after all.

At least he died out in the wilderness that he loved, I suppose. His family can take comfort in that.