Steve Irwin deserved it, says Germaine Greer

[CaptRand]

After seeing Barbara Walters interview with is widow, I felt bad for thinking he got his due, after molesting animals on camera for years. It also appears that the stingray was under the sand, perhaps making it's size more difficult for Steve to determine, and more of a freak accident.

Nobody could be so loved, and not be a truly wonderful person. I won't miss the wrestling matches with animals, but I will miss him. God bless Steve Irwin, wherever he landed in the universe.

I have to be honest, Irwin irritated me. He was too blasted cheerful. And if my iguana had ever gotten ahold of him he would never have pestered another animal again. However, he was a human being, and did more than anyone else has in years to make young people interested in preserving wildlife, A WORTHWHILE LIFE...unlike mine, "sigh." I also think the media should leave his family alone. TC...

[Unlimited]

I heard he abused animals ..id say he got his due..what i heard is he drugged 25 manta rays to make a show and they all died. then they cut off their stingers for the aphrodisiac market. then the big manta ray killed him for it.

[Pauly]

I heard he abused animals ..id say he got his due..what i heard is he drugged 25 manta rays to make a show and they all died. then they cut off their stingers for the aphrodisiac market. then the big manta ray killed him for it.

Not really worthy of a reply but here is one that sums you up...

[AtlantisRises]

I heard he abused animals ..id say he got his due..what i heard is he drugged 25 manta rays to make a show and they all died. then they cut off their stingers for the aphrodisiac market. then the big manta ray killed him for it.

Where did you hear such a stupid thing?

[Samael]

I do feel that he often didn't seem to think. 'Crikey, what a little beauty! I don't wanna make him mad, 'cause if he bites me I'm a goner! Now I'm gonna swing him 'round my head! Oh, strewth, he's bitten me! I've got 10 minutes to get to hospital and administer an antidote!'

I heard he abused animals ..id say he got his due..what i heard is he drugged 25 manta rays to make a show and they all died. then they cut off their stingers for the aphrodisiac market. then the big manta ray killed him for it.

Manta rays and sting rays are entirely different creatures, you fool.

Edited October 16, 2006 by Mister E.

[SilverCougar]

Ok, I am now going to assume after reading up to page... three.. of this banter, that no one ever watched his behind the scenes type shows.

As in, where he shows that most of the snakes and animals that he comes across just driving down the road or what have you, are placed by the crew and other animal handlers at his zoo. So half the time he's not pouncing some poor wild animal that's not used to human handling and traumatizing it. It is usually a snake that's used to being touched.

And *NEVER* has he kept an animal that was wild caught... longer then it's tolorance level. If an animal got to freaked, he'd just let it go on it's way. And he's by far *NOT* the first nor will he be the last animal show person to do such. (Jeff Corwin anyone?)

And saying that "He had it comming..." is pure asnign for the simple reason, we all "have it comming" Humans do stupid stuff all the damned time. I don't see her saying that death defires and stunt jockies have it comming. And they by far do stuff that endangers their life more then Irwin did.

Hells, some parents do worse then holding a baby while feeding a croc. Case in point? Couple years back there were these parents camping out here in the mountains, and they brought their little girl with them. Now, once they made camp in this spot, they found out that they were being watched by a cougar. Instead of moving out of it's territory, or finding a better spot... they stayed. They were endangering their child's life. There own to. Now, why do I say this is worse? Because on their way out of the forest when it was time for them to head home, they LET their little kid run up ahead of them when they *KNEW* they were being watched and stalked by a cougar. And the cougar did indeed do what cougars do. Went for what it thought was lunch.

See? Stupid sh**. Something that humans excel at. Now did you guys see this in the news world wide? No. Hells, it only got a smal article in a newspaper here. Only reason the world knew about Steve's little moment of The Stupid was because he's famous. And the way I see it, hateing him for that solely is a pot and kettle thing. Because we all do something that stupid atleast once or twice in our lives. You may deny it now.. but your life ain't over ;P

[Atheist God]

Steve Irwin like anyone else who works a high risk job had it coming for sure.

When I heard he died was I that surprised a 42 year old who works with dangerous unpredictable animals snuffed it? Not really.

I mean I thought he was the coolest thing to come out of Australia since Crocodile Dundee and AC/DC. Still at the same time I remember saying a few years back to my g/f at the time he will get killed by an animal one of these days. I just never expected it to be by a ***** sting ray. Which apparently turns out aren't so ***** after all....

[Lizardian_guy]

The only time Irwin ever seemed less than entirely lovable to his fans (as distinct from zoologists) was when he went into the Australia Zoo crocodile enclosure with his month-old baby son in one hand and a dead chicken in the other. For a second you didn't know which one he meant to feed to the crocodile.

If I ever had to prove that this author is mentally impaired, I'd bring that passage up. If, at that moment, you did not know what Irwin was gonna feed to the croc, you should not be allowed to roam free in my neighborhood. Who knows, you might grab kids to feed them to your dog, since apparently you have trouble making the difference between animal food and living humans.

I'd like to point out though that her article is purposefully retarded. It's what she wants. That way, people notice her, she gets famous, she gets better jobs. Stop falling for it. Instead of making big news out of her, take a poop in your hand and go smear it on her house. We want to send a strong message here.

(Okay, I was joking. Don't actually smear your feces anywhere you fool. Just send petitions to her editor saying you'll boycott their newspaper til she's fired or something.)

EDIT:

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space.

Now that is pure and utter bs.

If there is one thing the man kept heralding was how important it was to preserve the habitat. In fact, Australi's zoos has some of the largest pens around for good reason. And what most people don't know is that most animals he grabbed had to be grabbed. The man participated in several statistics research. When doing those, they have to grab animals, check their genders, check the size of some features (fangs, stingers, tails), etc. He didn't just randomly run into the outback and grabbed the first thing he saw, then left it at that. Several animals were caught, and they filmed everything, then he kept what he felt was best.

Edited October 17, 2006 by Lizardian_guy

[Picturesque Orion]

:angry2: For God sake, Ms Greer - have a heart!!!! :angry2:

Controversial reporter Germaine Greer has taken the recent Steve Irwin tragedy and used it to bolster her own sensationalist media. Her article in The Guardian Newspaper smacks of selfishness. If you have these views woman, by all means have them. But keep them to yourself while the world at large, and more importantly, his family and relatives, grieve the loss.

Edit: I should note that I'm not entirely disagreeing with everything in this article. Some of it makes sense. Some of it is trumped up, but a little is valid. I'm posting this as a thread on its own because Germaine Greer, the day after the man's death, printed an article that would be circulated worldwide, summing up that Irwin not only deserved it, but that we're better off without him. At best, it's extremely insensitve to the family he leaves behind. At best....

-----------------------------------------------------

Germaine Greer

Tuesday September 5, 2006

The Guardian

The world mourns. World-famous wildlife warrior Steve Irwin has died a hero, doing the thing he loved, filming a sequence for a new TV series. He was supposed to have been making a new documentary to have been called Ocean's Deadliest, but, when filming was held up by bad weather, he decided to "go off and shoot a few segments" for his eight-year-old daughter's upcoming TV series, "just stuff on the reef and little animals". His manager John Stainton "just said fine, anything that would keep him moving and keep his adrenaline going". Evidently it's Stainton's job to keep Irwin pumped larger than life, shouting "Crikey!" and punching the air.

Irwin was the real Crocodile Dundee, a great Australian, an ambassador for wildlife, a global phenomenon, a superhuman generator of merchandise, books, interactive video-games and action figures. The only creatures he couldn't dominate were parrots. A parrot once did its best to rip his nose off his face. Parrots are a lot smarter than crocodiles.

What seems to have happened on Batt Reef is that Irwin and a cameraman went off in a little dinghy to see what they could find. What they found were stingrays. You can just imagine Irwin yelling: "Just look at these beauties! Crikey! With those barbs a stingray can kill a horse!" (Yes, Steve, but a stingray doesn't want to kill a horse. It eats crustaceans, for God's sake.) All Australian children know about stingrays. We are now being told that only three people have ever been killed by Australian stingrays. One of them must have been the chap who bought it 60 years ago in Brighton Baths where my school used to go on swimming days. Port Philip Bay was famous for stingrays, which are fine as long as you can see them, but they do what most Dasyatidae do, which is bury themselves in the sand or mud with only their eyes sticking out. What you don't want to do with a stingray is stand on it. The lashing response of the tail is automatic; the barb is coated with a bacterial slime as deadly as rotten oyster toxin.

As a Melbourne boy, Irwin should have had a healthy respect for stingrays, which are actually commoner, and bigger, in southern waters than they are near Port Douglas, where he was killed. The film-makers maintain that the ray that took Irwin out was a "bull ray", or Dasyatis brevicaudata, but this is not usually found as far north as Port Douglas. Marine biologist Dr Meredith Peach has been quoted as saying, "It's really quite unusual for divers to be stung unless they are grappling with the animal and, knowing Steve Irwin, perhaps that may have been the case." Not much sympathy there then.

The only time Irwin ever seemed less than entirely lovable to his fans (as distinct from zoologists) was when he went into the Australia Zoo crocodile enclosure with his month-old baby son in one hand and a dead chicken in the other. For a second you didn't know which one he meant to feed to the crocodile. If the crocodile had been less depressed it might have made the decision for him. As the catatonic beast obediently downed its tiny snack, Irwin walked his baby on the grass, not something that paediatricians recommend for rubbery baby legs even when there isn't a stir-crazy carnivore a few feet away. The adoring world was momentarily appalled. They called it child abuse. The whole spectacle was revolting. The crocodile would rather have been anywhere else and the chicken had had a grim life too, but that's entertainment at Australia Zoo.

Irwin's response to the sudden outburst of criticism was bizarre. He believed that he had the crocodile under control. But he could have fallen over, suggested an interviewer. He admitted that was possible, but only if a meteor had hit the earth and caused an earthquake of 6.6 on the Richter scale. That sort of self-delusion is what it takes to be a "real Aussie larrikin".

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss. There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress. Every snake badgered by Irwin was at a huge disadvantage, with only a single possible reaction to its terrifying situation, which was to strike. Easy enough to avoid, if you know what's coming. Even my cat knew that much. Those of us who live with snakes, as I do with no fewer than 12 front-fanged venomous snake species in my bit of Queensland rainforest, know that they will get out of our way if we leave them a choice. Some snakes are described as aggressive, but, if you're a snake, unprovoked aggression doesn't make sense. Snakes on a plane only want to get off. But Irwin was an entertainer, a 21st-century version of a lion-tamer, with crocodiles instead of lions.

In 2004, Irwin was accused of illegally encroaching on the space of penguins, seals and humpback whales in Antarctica, where he was filming a documentary called Ice Breaker. An investigation by the Australian Environmental Department resulted in no action being taken, which is not surprising seeing that John Howard, the prime minister, made sure that Irwin was one of the guests invited to a "gala barbecue" for George Bush a few months before. Howard is now Irwin's chief mourner, which is only fair, seeing that Irwin announced that Howard is the greatest leader the world has ever seen.

The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin, but probably not before a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small has learned to shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs, determined to become millionaire animal-loving zoo-owners in their turn.

Source

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How can anyone say this, really? :angry2:

Where the **** can I contact this b****? :angry2:

[Pinky Floyd]

South Park nailed him again last night in the newest episode:

"...if you lose the big game, that kids gonna die faster than Steve Irwin in a tank full of stingrays.."

Brutal.

Dark humor at it's best.

Edited November 17, 2006 by Pinky Floyd

[SonnyChiba]

Once again, Thats CRAZY!

[Raptorial]

Why couldn't you let this poor thread rest like the wonderful man it talks about?

[when.i.am.queen.]

Why couldn't you let this poor thread rest like the wonderful man it talks about?

I think that some people are trying to say that perhaps good old Stevo wasn't quite as wonderful as people thought

[coldethyl]

I think that some people are trying to say that perhaps good old Stevo wasn't quite as wonderful as people thought

They're wrong.

[when.i.am.queen.]

They're wrong.

I think that your in the minority with that thought

[coldethyl]

I think that your in the minority with that thought

Re-read this thread then.

You'll see I'm right.

[Mr Black]

I can only go by what i know and that is that he was good to animals, there will always be people that doubt that, but im not one of them untill someone can prove to me different.....and people say he had it coming? whats that about?

Steve Irwin - Rest in Peace 'You beut'

[Starr Destin Mathews]

I think she should have at least waited til his family had time to mourn before posting an article like this and i think its wrong to judge him about the baby and the crocodile thing I mean he is a professional with crocodiles he knows his limit its not like he stuck the baby's head in the crocodiles mouth. I couldnt judge him unless I was a wildlife expert. I think he was great and he didnt harrass animals he was trying to bring animals and humans closer together he must have truly loved what he did to put himself in danger that much. he was great and I think people should remember the good things about him.

[ASOP]

He was a great guy!!!! He has done so much for the animal world.

[laveticus666]

While I don't think anyone deserves such an awful death, not even Irwin, I think most people saw it coming. I think we all knew that sooner or later one such stunt of his was going to cause his demise.

I am among those who were appalled at that stunt with his baby. That croc could have gone for the child. Most parents wouldn't dream of endangering their own child. To me that was right up there with Michael Jackson dangling his infant over the balcony railing. Very sad.

I had often thought too, that you'd think that now that he was a father, with the responsibility of a child to raise and care for, he would calm down and live a less dangerous life. Quite frankly, I also used to wonder about the man's sanity.

But despite all that, his death is certainly a tragedy and very sad.

Steve was with those crocs almost every day. He knew what it was going to do and how it was going to do it. Theres no way that child was endangerd at all. Its like you taking your kid for a car ride.

[Libranaster]

I am the first to admit Steve Erwin was a bit of an idiot. I mean he was playing with fire his whole life stuffing around with dangerous animals and he died because of that. What we have to remember is without idiots like him we would not have the information about these animals we have and Steve loved what he was doing. From what I have seen of interviews with his wife he didn't want to be remembered as a hero any way so I imagine he would admit it is his fault but I am in awe of the sacrifice he made to preserve these animals and to give us information on them we never would have had any other way. I am afraid I might be a bit biased because I am Australian but also Australia really does have some awsome wild life and we are lucky enough that no one has wiped them out yet and Steve's contribution to our wild life may mean it will be around for a long time to come.

[Mad Manfred]

Deserved it? Absolutely not.

Had it coming? Certainly.

Oh, and I think I'm the only Australian on the planet that couldn't stand him.

[SilverCougar]

I have to share...

Just to lighten to mood abit..

X) Funny thing is.. I can so see this happening...

[AtlantisRises]

lmao. Thats good SC

[Scare_Crow]

Deserved it? Absolutely not.

Had it coming? Certainly.

Oh, and I think I'm the only Australian on the planet that couldn't stand him.

The original post on the thread is an interesting perspective. I sort of thought he was whacko when he put his baby in harms way. It was reminiscent of Michael Jackson hanging his over that balcony. Not a good camp to be in. If it was my child, I would have fed the baby to a fake alligator, and gotten a few good laughs with no real danger.

Let's be real, though. Isn't Steve Irwin the sort of guy you might want to have dinner with in the Bush? If the answer is yes, then why not Heaven as well? Cut him a little slack. The world needs a few crazy people, just so we can establish who thinks they're normal.