\u201cShe said: \u201cSteve \u2026 \u201c.<\/p>\n
Two decades on, the memories of the man the world knew as the Crocodile Hunter still cause a lump in his throat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s on the photograph on the wall in my lounge room,\u201d Dr Read says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still very much part of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read first met Irwin in 1997 on what can only be described as a very Steve Irwin kind of operation, a turtle rodeo in Moreton Bay.<\/p>\n
People were tearing around in small, fast boats in shallow water, hurling themselves overboard to wrestle the surprised critters to the surface.<\/p>\n
From that chaotic first encounter, the pair went on to spend years working together on crocodile research across north Queensland.<\/p>\n
Their collaboration helped launch a pioneering satellite\u2011tracking effort dubbed Crocs in Space, a partnership between Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Australia Zoo and the University of Queensland.<\/p>\n
It used some of the first functional satellite transmitters ever fitted to estuarine crocodiles, revealing how far the big predators could roam and even how many found their way home after relocation.<\/p>\n
Far from a caricature, Read remembers Irwin as an extraordinarily intelligent, relentlessly curious field collaborator.<\/p>\n
Irwin carried a tatty green backpack everywhere he went.<\/p>\n
Inside was an even tattier folder and notepad he constantly filled with sketches to capture techniques and ideas for future research.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw all the hallmarks of an incredibly active mind,\u201d Read says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was super interested in the science.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were long, quiet hours that never made it to television \u2013 nights around campfires and early mornings when Irwin would wake Read for tea and conversations about crocodiles, wild places and how to get the public to care.<\/p>\n
For a man with global reach and serious earning power, Irwin never changed, turning up to remote field trips in boots with holes patched up with gaffer tape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a bloke who relaxed on his airs and graces,\u201d Read says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt most certainly wasn\u2019t about earning a heap of money and living a lavish lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n
What struck Read was Irwin\u2019s visceral understanding of dangerous animals.<\/p>\n
It was in the way he could read a crocodile\u2019s body language in a heartbeat or calmly scoop up a six\u2011foot coastal taipan from the grass, keep it unruffled, and then let it slide away as if it were the most natural thing in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had this uncanny awareness working with crocodiles and snakes,\u201d Read says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so in tune with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was, Read says, both a \u201cproper stirrer\u201d who loved taking the mickey in good humour and a deeply tender family man who \u201clived for his family\u201d.<\/p>\n
When Read\u2019s first daughter was born, Steve and Terri Irwin sent boxes of presents and an enormous floral arrangement to the family home.<\/p>\n
When the Reads visited Australia Zoo with the baby, Irwin cried when he met her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was such a family man. He lived for his family and epitomised that idea of Aussies being the salt of the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s this mixture of raw emotion, outrageous stunts and genuine care that has kept Irwin\u2019s memory alive long after dying from a stingray barb in waters off Port Douglas on September 4, 2006.<\/p>\n
For people like Clancy Lester, Irwin has never been forgotten.<\/p>\n
Growing up in country Victoria, the native bee researcher says the family TV rarely showed movies or sitcoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved any nature documentary I could get my hands on,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t interested in watching TV or movies \u2013 it was just nature docs \u2013 so that\u2019s why Steve was always on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lester was five or six when Irwin died but the impact has endured.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the Crocodile Hunter simply mirrored an existing obsession or lit the spark, he doesn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh no, he absolutely got me interested,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In primary school, when most of his classmates arrived at Book Week dressed as superheroes, Lester turned up in khaki as a pint\u2011sized Crocodile Hunter.<\/p>\n
Years later he completed a master\u2019s research project on native bees at the University of Melbourne, specialising in how Australia\u2019s pollinators interact with flowering plants.<\/p>\n
In workshops, online posts and his Bees and Blossoms business he echoes Irwin\u2019s over\u2011the\u2011top enthusiasm to get people buzzing about pollinators and native plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely try and channel some of his enthusiasm for nature,\u201d Lester says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone has such a burning passion and is so extreme and just absolutely loves it to bits, it\u2019s infectious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long before algorithms and clickbait, it was Irwin\u2019s charm and love for the natural world that opened doors of wildlife fascination in viewers from Brisbane to New York.<\/p>\n
Lester admits he uses Irwin\u2019s blueprint: be \u201ca little bit extra\u201d, lean into enthusiasm and reach people who might never pick up a conservation report or tune into a science lecture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think, I know that he inspired whole generations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
From backpacker hostels overseas to university labs at home, Irwin remains shorthand for Australia itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the first things people think of when you mention Australia is snakes and crocodiles and spiders and sharks \u2013 and then they go, and you\u2019ve got the Crocodile Hunter on top,\u201d Lester says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like his own category.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irwin\u2019s global recognition has been carried by widow Terri, daughter Bindi and son Robert.<\/p>\n
They continue to run Australia Zoo and its wildlife hospital while fronting documentaries, talk shows and social media channels that reach millions.<\/p>\n
For them, this anniversary is not just about a global wildlife warrior but a much\u2011missed family man who has been sadly absent from his children\u2019s lives longer than he was in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll be my hero for my entire existence. I love you more than words can describe,\u201d Bindi wrote in one tribute, alongside a photo of Irwin in his trademark khaki, proudly hoisting his infant daughter.<\/p>\n
Where Irwin once leapt into frame with a writhing crocodile, today\u2019s conservation influencers are just as likely to be found on TikTok or in classrooms, talking about bees, soil microbes or urban wetlands.<\/p>\n
But the template \u2013 big\u2011hearted enthusiasm, simple language and an insistence that even \u201cscary\u201d animals deserve protection \u2013 is unmistakably his.<\/p>\n
Read sees that clearly in Irwin\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of his most outstanding legacies is the bloke who comes on television pretty regularly now and just looks like him, sounds like him, has the same mindset as him,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s unashamedly using whatever weapons he has in his arsenal to promote conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believes Irwin would be \u201csuper proud\u201d of his family and of what Australia Zoo has become, and still out there pushing hard for wildlife and wild places.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to change people\u2019s behaviours, change their mindset about why conserving species and habitats is important, you\u2019ve got to give them messages that resonate with their value system,\u201d Read says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve could do that better than anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cShe said: \u201cSteve \u2026 \u201c. Two decades on, the memories of the man the world knew as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[921,93,61,60,257829,43,82,7696,263],"class_list":["post-608747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-celebrity","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies-tv","tag-news","tag-science","tag-the-latest-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}