We've all seen him on television, the crazy Australian who, with all the enthusiasm of a 10-year-old boy, catches crocodiles and venomous snakes with his bare hands-the Aussie who tackles kangaroos and wild boars and lets the deadliest snakes in the world tongue-flick his face. Together with his American wife, Terri, Steve Irwin, better known as The Crocodile Hunter, has created one of the most popular shows on television.
I first corresponded with Steve in late 1995, before The Crocodile Hunter series had reached America. I knew him as a fellow varanid enthusiast who had bred rare Australian monitors. It wasn't until I visited his wildlife park, now called Australia Zoo, in 1996 that I learned of his enthusiasm and of the show. He gave me a tape of the first episode to watch and in hysterical disbelief I simply asked, "When will we see this in the States?"
The show aired a year later in America and it was a tremendous success. Since that time, we have worked together on rattlesnake episodes of the show and we still correspond about all things non-human. While herping Australia's east coast in December of 1998, I caught up with Steve at Australia Zoo. I taped the following interview to introduce Reptiles' readers to the Steve I know:
Steve and Terri Irwin pose with Jeff Lemm and a large white-throated monitor (Varanus albigularis) in San Diego, California. |
Jeff Lemm (JL): Tell me about your mother and father, how Australia Zoo started, and what life was like growing up in a zoo.
Steve Irwin (SI): Well, my dad (Bob Irwin) is quite a globally recognized herpetologist who has since retired. He still keeps a really fond interest in wildlife in general, and he's got taipans and four species of goannas and all types of stuff in his backyard in the wild. During the '60s, he had a huge interest in conservation and wildlife which was shared by my mum (Lyn Irwin). Coming into the late '60s, he started developing on that. He had a very successful plumbing business in Melbourne and his interest in wildlife grew to be an overwhelming passion. And mum was really big on rehabilitation with native species back into the wild, so by 1970 they bought this block of land and built the Beerwah Reptile Park, which was 40 cents for adults and 20 cents for kids. And it just grew and grew from a menagerie that we had where I was born in Upper Fern Tree Gully up in the Dendenong Ranges, to the Beerwah Reptile Park which became the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, which is now Australia Zoo. Mum's forte was rehabilitation with wildlife, always has been, always will be, from koalas and wombats to tiger snakes. And Dad was ahead of his time in herpetology here in Australia in conservation and designed some brilliant conservation techniques and strategies which are in place both federally and statewide, as well. He's ahead of his time. I've always been involved in it, and ever since I can remember, I've been out in the scrub with Dad catching and looking at wildlife.
As an example, when I was very young, like 4 years of age, I captured my first brown snake by putting my foot on it. Dad came over and decked me out of the way-it's the second most venomous snake in the world. So he's like, "Get off it!" and I'm like, "I got it, Dad, I got it!" (laughs). By 9, he had me jumpin' my first croc, a freshwater croc. "Whack!" I jumped it, and I was barely able to hang onto it. But the strength of Dad's arm come up and pulled me and the croc into the boat.
So that's where it started. I have had an exceptional hands-on experience with native Australian wildlife from the womb. Mate, from when I could walk I've been in the Australian bush. Nowadays, it's still goin'. Nothing's changed except now I'm touring throughout the world doing what I've always loved doing-getting in close to wildlife. I've taken Mum and Dad's strategy of conservation through education, and I've taken the next step through our wildlife documentaries and through setting up Australia Zoo. We eat, sleep and live for education for conservation. And with our wildlife documentaries, all we want to do is get the cameras right fair smack in where it's happening. We want to get you in there. Same with Australia Zoo. You come to Australia Zoo and you will have an experience of wildlife rather than "look over there, there's a crocodile," or "there's a koala."
JL: What other interests did you have as a child? Everybody knows you were the total animal kid, but what else did you do? Tell me anything you did.
SI: I surfed. I was the maddest surfer. I still am very passionate about my surfing, although now I get very little time to surf. But there's no doubt about it that wildlife has been my total life.
JL: Did you play any sports?
SI: Yeah, mate, I played football.
JL: Australian Rules, no doubt.
SI: No, mate, I played Rugby League. I played a little bit of Australian Rules, but I wasn't that good at it. I wasn't real good at kickin'; I was better at chargin' into a big mob of people and bustin' 'em up.
JL: (laughs) That's the way it should be.
JL: Okay, you talked about the park and what you're doing here. But how about fieldwork and breeding? I know you've bred keithhornei (the canopy goanna), and it was the first ever breeding. What type of fieldwork and breeding would you want to be known for?
SI: My scientific background has been rather focused on varanids, but we're stemming out a lot further than that. Australia Zoo will always have a big interest in varanids and we'll do our best, and we are currently involved in some rather large varanid projects like semiremex (the rusty monitor) and giganteus (perentie). They're two huge projects that have been going on for quite a few years and will probably go on for the next 10 years or more. We're starting to wind down on our keithhornei project. We've been very successful there. Myself and my staff, particularly Wes Mannion, who's my right-hand man and has been my best friend virtually all of my life. He's now the director of the zoo, and he's an ugly bastard.
JL: He smells horrible, too!
SI: No doubt about that! (Both laugh, because Wes is in the room.) Back to it, though, we're working on Oxyuranus microlepidotus (the fierce snake), and we're also really heavily involved with the woma (Aspidites ramsayi). There's a Brigelow Belt population of woma which is really endangered here in Queensland, and is only found in Queensland. Wes and I have been studying this woma since we were kids, and we're getting there. We're making some major breakthroughs.
JL: Breakthroughs in that you're producing these animals in captivity?
SI: No, we're talking fieldwork-strictly fieldwork. We're doing more with captive varanids than with any other family. We've now got a huge interest in working with Brachylophus (Fijian iguanas). Myself and Terri, we went to an island in Fiji and discovered another population of iguanas that were once thought to be there.
JL: In Monoriki?
SI: Yeah. They're there all right, and they're very endangered, so we're working on that, too.
JL: Speaking of Terri, tell us how you met and how she's influenced you and the park through her mammal background, because I know you were strictly a herper before Terri came along!
SI: (laughs) You got the inside story, mate! Back in 1991, I was cruising along, heavily involved in the East Coast Crocodile Management Program. My entire life revolved around the conservation of crocodiles. I was in the field with my dog (Sui), backed by Wes and my dad, catching, removing and releasing large "problem" crocodiles that people wanted dead. We live for our crocodile conservation and are very passionate about it and so we were doing this really heavy work, and I was up there for a couple of months on end. So anyway, I came back here and I was doing a crocodile demonstration (at the park) with one of my favorite crocodiles, "Agro," a really naughty croc who hates my guts and wants me dead. So I'm in there and "Whack!" he takes this pig or chicken, or whatever it was out of my hand. I jump back and go, "Whoa! Isn't he beautiful?" and I looked over and here's this Sheila in the crowd, mate, and I swear I just went "Whew, happy day!" She's in the crowd! And our eyes met, and it was like a connection. It was a total connection-there and then-with first contact of our eyes. And I could feel myself drifting into this haze, and I look down and here's Agro coming up to kill my a$@ and I was like "s*&#!" So, I jump out of the way and think, "I'd better get out!" I jumped out and "Blah, blah, blah," finished my demonstration, just staring at this girl. She comes over and starts talking to me and asks me these tough, politically hot conservation and wildlife questions. Given her background with Cougar Country, she owned a big wildlife rehabilitation center in Oregon, I must have answered them right, cause I made her smile a lot and we talked for hours and hours. I thought, "This is my kind of girl!"
I couldn't believe it. I wasn't interested in girls. Man, all I wanted to do was do my crocs and herps. Girls? Who cares? She was pretty well the same. She was into cougars, bears, raccoons and possums and stuff. It was love at first sight. But she had to go. She went down to Byron Bay, but rang up in a couple of days, and I was like "Come up here, come up here!" So she came up and spent a few days here, and I got her rakin' and cleanin' out croc pens and got her right in amongst it. She was at one with reptiles from the first two seconds she landed in this paddock, mate. It was great, but then she left to go back home to Oregon, and within a couple of months I was over in Oregon, and then a few months later we were married.
JL: That quick, huh? Wow. Okay, how has she influenced the park? I've seen some changes since I've known you.
SI: We got married in 1992, and I was strictly herp. Mammals were really good reptile food (laughs). Terri walked in on the scene, Mum and Dad had retired, and from the moment she came along we had a major swing towards mammals. And that hasn't stopped. We're still punching ahead rather rapidly with mammals. No, Jeff, I'm not using them for goanna and crocodile food (laughs). We've actually enhanced our mammal exhibits a thousand-fold. We're big on koalas and other native mammals, and its going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
JL: She may be used to it now, I don't know, but how does Terri react to your risky handling skills.
SI: Uh-huh (laughing). Well it started out that she was nervous, yet willing. And pretty soon it worked out that she wanted to be involved. It wasn't a matter of me asking her to be involved or not be involved. She was passionate about being involved. So we never had a conflict of interest about the danger that my work involves, because she is in it.
As a prime example, we're conducting research on the fierce snake (inland taipan) which Wes and I had been doing for many, many years in conjunction with Bob, my dad. We took Terri out there and on the way out there she says, "When are you going to let me do venomous snakes?" I said, "Well, you know sweetheart, you'd have to prove to me that you're at one with snakes, because we tail 'em and the only way you can do that is to have a total passion about the animal, become at one with it in the first 30 seconds or you're going to get bitten. And our snakes are quick, they're some of the quickest on the face of the Earth, and they're certainly the most venomous. A lot of times they think you're going to kill them. So you have to demonstrate to me that you'd be able to be at one with let's say a slower venomous snake like a tiger snake, and then we'll work our way up. But let's start with non-venomous." So, she was like, "Yeah, I'm happy with that."
We get out onto the blacksoil plains in the guts of Australia, and the (camera) crew is along and "Bang!" there's this fierce snake! I run up to it, and Terri's there and her eyes are as big as dinner plates, and I don't know what happened to me, Jeff, I just had a mental blackout. I'm going, "Okay, Ter, you get it!" And she's like, "Ahh!"
So, here's this steamer fierce snake, as thick as three fingers, it's a bloody good one, over 5 foot, and it was 30 degrees Celsius, pretty early in the morning. She's seen me do it a thousand times, so she has a catch bag and she's going to grab it by the tail, and it turns on her. She goes to grab again, and it turns on her. Half a kilometer later, this snake's starting to go, "Are you going to grab me or what!" (laughs) The snake's starting, "I've had enough of you following me," which in fact was beautiful 'cause the snake got to understanding in that 10 minutes of her trying to get it that "this thing doesn't mean to kill me." Which was beautiful, it worked in well with the snake, and then it's goin', "Right O', I'm gonna start looking for a hole to go into, you know, back into my labyrinth." And Terri's goin', "What am I doin' wrong? What am I doin' wrong?"
"You're just too flaming scared!" I said.
"Oh!" So she just walked up to it, grabbed it by the tail, and put it in the catch bag, swoosh, straight in. Just like a professional. So she's totally involved with what we do. When it comes to really hardcore dangerous work, like some of the crocodile work, she doesn't have to stand back and wait for the moment to hit. She does it instinctively. And she's very good at listening. So when we come in on something and I'm a little apprehensive and say "Get back!" she's back. When I go, she goes. And I think that's beautiful because the rest of our 20-odd staff we've got here can see her and Wes and go "This is how we work. When he says go, we go." Because if they don't go, I die. And so it's a very important gut reaction to make. She's good at it, mate, she's the best in the world.
JL: I believe you, I've seen her in action. She's a heck of a lady. Perhaps the question people want to hear most, in my experience anyway, is how did the "Crocodile Hunter" series get started and what was the reaction of the general public to the show?
SI: In 1992, just after we got married, we thought, "Right, well let's have a honeymoon." So we zip back to Australia where I get a phone call from north Queensland saying "We've got these problem crocodiles, is there any chance you can come up and remove them?" I'm going, "Oh no, the honeymoon. Well, Terri?" And she's goin', "Yeah, well, I'm keen."
And a real good friend of mine which I've been working with for a long time, John Stainton (he owns the Best Picture Show Company, which is one of the biggest commercial producers in Australia), he said, "Look, if you ever do any more crocodile work, I'd like to be in on it." I'd shown him these hours of home video of me catching crocs in the years gone by.
So we're on our honeymoon, and he goes up and films it with this film crew. I'm like, "Holy smokes, it's pretty hard to have a honeymoon." That was our first two documentaries, catching these crocodiles. They showed in Australia and Canada and hit real well, and then over in America it hit like a ton of bricks! By the time it had shown in America (1997) we were already in full production. Making documentaries every spare moment we could. And once they hit the U.S., they hit like a bomb-it has just totally gone ballistic. Now we spend about a third of our time in the U.S. working on docos, working with U.S. wildlife. But by the same token, in the last three months I've been playin' with headhunters in Irian Jaya, I've been to a couple different countries in Africa doing Nile crocs and black mambas, and I just got back from Oregon in the U.S. getting a shoulder reconstruction (laughs). So it's all over the paddock! So that's how we started; the first two docos was our honeymoon.
JL: Okay, well here's a question that you probably hear all the time, the favorite question of the interviewer: How has stardom changed your life?
SI: It hasn't. It hasn't changed my life one iota. You know I'm not a movie star, I do television documentaries.
JL: You sure (jokingly)?
SI: Walk around and get a thousand different opinions, please. Honestly, it hasn't changed me at all. What you see on television I've been doin' since I was a boy. My earliest childhood memories, as far back as my tiny little memory can go, I've been doin' this stuff, still am. So as far as the adventures are concerned, nothing's changed. As far as the stardom and how big my head's gotten, or how big my ego's gotten, I'd like to think I haven't changed one iota. What it (television) has done is it's given me a stepping stone to get to some other countries and really wild destinations throughout this world, which perhaps I would have had to struggle to get to. Through wildlife documentaries, now I'm able to go to Africa right smack into the Nile crocodile territory in a canoe and get attacked by hippos! Just what I've always wanted to do (grinning)!
So that's how it's changed my life, and I'll tell you what, I'm lovin' it! Imagine how proud myself, Terri, our families, our staff, our colleagues are to see how well our shows are doing in the U.S. When you look at television or any media in this world, the U.S. is the biggest, it is the greatest phenomena in media on the face of this Earth, and it brings us the greatest amount of pride and honor to work over there and have people come up and get our autograph-want to have our photo taken and all that kind of stuff.
We're not movie stars, we're wildlife documentary people, so we can see that our wildlife message is now going to over 130 different countries across the world. We've got a viewership of over 500 million people! Whew! Talk about pride! Here is the greatest conservation message the world can see. It's going everywhere! What's our life revolve around? Wildlife. And so conservation of wildlife, that is our gift to this world. I don't care what anyone says, man, it's one word-habitat. And we can see how we're helping to save habitat, and we are lovin' it!
Go to Part 2