'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin killed in accident

Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.

Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.

Paramedics from Cairns rushed to the scene but were unable to save him.

Mr Irwin was known for his television show The Crocodile Hunter and his work with native Australian wildlife.

Police in Queensland confirmed the environmentalist's death and said his family had been notified. Mr Irwin was married with two young children.

Mr Irwin's manager John Stainton told the BBC the stingray's barb had pierced the personality's heart.

"He came over the top of a stingray and a barb, the stingray's barb went up and put a hole into his heart," he said.

"We got him back within a couple of minutes to Croc 1, which is Steve's research vessel, and by 12 o'clock when the emergency crew arrived they pronounced him dead."

The incident happened at Batt Reef, off Port Douglas.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said had known Mr Irwin well, and that the country had lost a "wonderful and colourful son".

"I am quite shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden untimely and freakish death", he said.

"It's a huge loss to Australia - he was a wonderful character, he was a passionate environmentalist, he brought entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters.

It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.

Attacks on humans are a rarity - only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.

"Stingrays only sting in defence, they're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," Dr Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne said.

Experts say that while painful, stingray venom is rarely lethal and it would have been the wound caused by the barb itself, which could measure up to 20cm long, which proved fatal.

"What happened to Steve Irwin is like being stabbed in the heart. It has little to do with the venom and all to do with the trauma caused by the barb of the stingray," Dr Geoff Isbister, a clinical toxicologist at the Mater Hospital in Newcastle, Australia, said.

Mr Irwin had built up what was a small reptile park in Queensland into what is now Australia Zoo, a major centre for Australian wildlife.

He was famous for handling dangerous creatures such as crocodiles, snakes and spiders, and his documentaries on his work with crocodiles drew a worldwide audience.

But he also courted controversy with a series of stunts.

He sparked outrage across Australia after cradling his one-month-old son a metre away from the reptile during a show at Australia Zoo.

An investigation was launched into whether Mr Irwin and his team interacted too closely with penguins and whales while filming in the Antarctic, but no action was taken.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer praised Mr Irwin for his work to promote Australia.

Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 311298.stm

Obituary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 311982.stm

JimboPSM wrote:A real larger than life Aussie who will be greatly missed by all.

beer monkey wrote:me and the wife always watch his TV shows bloody good viewing. "crikey". a very sad loss.
steve irwin's web site.

http://www.crocodilehunter.com/ .

Tape 'shows Irwin's last moments'

The naturalist worked to protect Australian wildlife


Irwin with crocodiles
Videotape of the moment Steve Irwin was hit by a stingray's tail shows the Australian naturalist pulling the barb from his chest, his manager has said.
"The tail came up, and spiked him here [in the chest], and he pulled it out and the next minute, he's gone," Mr Irwin's manager, John Stainton, said.

Queensland state police have now taken the tape to be used in an inquest into the incident on the Great Barrier Reef.

The much-loved TV star could be given a state funeral if his family agree.

Throughout Monday and Tuesday thousands of fans gathered at Mr Irwin's zoo in Beerwah on Australia's sunshine coast to lay flowers and write messages of condolence.

On Tuesday, Australia's federal parliament paused to honour Mr Irwin, whom Prime Minister John Howard said had died in "quintessentially Australian circumstances".

It was a hard thing to watch because you are actually watching a person die

Steve Irwin's manager John Stainton
Mr Howard quoted Australian-based actor Russell Crowe, who had paid tribute to Mr Irwin earlier by saying: "Steve Irwin was the Australian many of us aspire to be."

Mr Irwin had been in the water at Batt Reef, off the resort town of Port Douglas about 100km (62 miles) north of Cairns, filming bull stingrays for a TV documentary called Ocean's Deadliest.

'It probably felt threatened'

Cameraman Ben Cropp, who was also on the reef when Mr Irwin was killed on Monday, spoke to a member of the production crew who had seen the footage of the incident.

"He was up in the shallow water, probably 1.5m to 2m deep, following a bull ray which was about a metre across the body - probably weighing about 100kg, and it had quite a large spine," Mr Cropp told The Australian newspaper.

STINGRAYS

Members of the Dasyatidae family of cartilaginous fish, with about 70 species worldwide
Mostly found in tropical seas, but exist in freshwater too
Feed primarily on molluscs and crustaceans on sea floor
Swim with flying motion using large pectoral wings
Usually docile, not known to attack aggressively
Equipped with venom-coated razor-sharp barbed or serrated tail, up to 20cm long
"It stopped and went into a defensive mode and swung its tail with the spike. It probably felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead, and it felt there was danger and it baulked."

Though armed with a venom-coated, sharp barb on their tail, stingrays only use the weapon defensively and attacks on humans are extremely rare.

Appearing on ABC News, Mr Stainton, who was with the TV crew on the reef, described watching the footage of the incident as a "terrible" experience.

"It was a hard thing to watch because you are actually watching a person die," Mr Stainton said.

Mr Irwin's heart is believed to have been pierced, and he died almost immediately.

Websites overwhelmed

Mr Irwin's body has now been flown from the mortuary in Cairns, where a post-mortem examination was carried out, to the small town of Beerwah where he lived.

HAVE YOUR SAY
His programmes were a joy to watch


The TV presenter is survived by his wife Terri and two children - eight-year-old daughter Bindi Sue and three-year-old son Bob.

No funeral arrangements have been announced yet, but Queensland State Premier Peter Beattie said Mr Irwin would be given a state funeral if his family approved.

Mr Irwin was regarded by many Australians as a national treasure and as news of his death broke, news websites across the country found it difficult to cope with the demand for information.

Tributes flowed in from Mr Irwin's fellow conservationists and his many fans around the world, and across the country on Tuesday the morning papers devoted their front pages to news of his death.