posted
I'll miss him. I have never seen a person so amazed and happy to discover large piles of poo. To me he used pretty much the opposite techniques to David Attenborough to achieve much the same effect - get people interested in animals and show how stunning nature can be. I also thought he was invincible, apparently I was wrong. Rest in peace Steve.
Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Thank you. Someone else agrees with me. I laughed good, long, & hard. My only comment: "SPEED KILLS, PEACHES!"
Also, from Scott Adams' blog: I was shocked when I heard the news that the Crocodile Hunter died in a �freak stingray accident.� I had ten dollars bet on �misjudged the speed of a crocodile.� Something tells me that the media already had his obituary written with a fill-in-the-blank for the specific creature that killed him.
posted
I listened to a segment on CNN where they talked to the producer mentioned in the story, I believe it was John Stainton.
He said the video they were shooting was not about Stingrays and that Steve simply swam over a Stingray buried in the sand. The Stingray I'm guessing was startled enough to lash out and hit Steve in the chest with its barb, the result of which was the barb punctured his heart.
So, rather than him dying while doing something dangerous, he died the way any other diver could have, from the barb of a startled Stingray he just happened to swim over without noticing.
[ September 04, 2006, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: Sol System ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
If that's true, then I'd be much more inclined to be lenient. At least he wasn't purposely antagonizing the creatures. Still, in his line of work, it pays to be careful. And if his TV persona is anything to go by, he wasn't careful.
I must admit, I've still got this mental image of him exclaiming, "Crikey, it got me!"
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
That's what it says in the news stories, though admittedly not in the one linked, I don't think. Anyway, supposedly it's only the second or third death by sting ray in Australian history.
I want to clarify that my skepticism has to do solely with the claim that nobody took nature documentaries seriously until Steve Irwin, since I think in some sense the answer is just the opposite. On the other hand, he surely played a part in enhancing Animal Planet's bottom line, and he was by all accounts a serious mover in local wildlife conservation.
This will make my next viewing of The Life Aquatic that much more depressing, I think.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: If that's true, then I'd be much more inclined to be lenient. At least he wasn't purposely antagonizing the creatures. Still, in his line of work, it pays to be careful. And if his TV persona is anything to go by, he wasn't careful.
Exactly: my first thought was "He must have really rilled up a stingray to get himself killed by one! I've handeled stingrays a couple of times- both at Monterray and Miami seaquariums and found them to be very docile. Of course, that's not a "wild" animal exactly, but I have never ever heard of anyone being killed by a stingray. Here in south Florida, there are weekly stingray encounters for divers and no one has ever been seriously hurt by a stingray.
It's not kind, but I still think they may have been provoking the animal to get "good footage" like on most of Irwin's assinine shows, "Here's a big croc- never ever grab it like this!"
The guy helped get a lot of people intrested in animals, but definitely not by respecting them.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, in many ways he was an illusionist and magician. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing, and used the camera to create a false sense of danger where (for him) there wasn't much of one. It was very much a case of "don't try this at home" as, after all, he had trained himself to do this right.
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
sort of like "Jackass: The Movie"?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Except that in Jackass they were trying to hurt themselves. Steve's dad was a herpetologist and he'd been around dangerous animals literally all his life. It'd be like if you or I made a documentary about driving, and showed it to someone in a third world country who'd never seen a car in real life, and did things like pull donuts or fishtail on the ice or just show them 100mph traffic around Chicago on the interstate, and pretending that we're in extreme danger when really, its just something we do every day...
Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I've seen other shows based on The Croc Hunter. Such as Killer Instinct with some bearded guy. He used the exact same technique for catching crocodiles and snakes. It may seem disrespectful to us, but it is the best way to handle a wild animal and not get yourself or the animal hurt.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
"Luke, I am your - Crikey! Would you look at the size of this croc!"
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
For some reason Steve Irwin's death really bothered me...I was sad for most of Monday. I'm not one to mourn the death of celebrities, nor am I a fan of his. But I agree with AndrewR; he was so full of life that he seemed nearly invincible. And he was such a character, and characters aren't supposed to die! In any case, it's never easy to see someone cut down in his prime...
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I can't believe a crock didn't take him out... and to think of his children, they'd have to watch his shows and vid to see what kind of a dad he was both on and off screen. I wonder why and how his wife tolerated his job.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
