{"id":128500,"date":"2025-09-10T21:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/128500\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:42:08","slug":"steve-irwins-dad-slams-influencers-crocodile-catching-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/128500\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Irwin’s dad slams influencer\u2019s crocodile catching video"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father of Australia\u2019s famous \u201cCrocodile Hunter\u201d Steve Irwin <\/a>has unleashed on an American influencer who posted viral videos of himself catching crocodiles in Far North Queensland.<\/p>\n

Mike Holston \u2014 also known as \u2018The Real Tarzan\u2019 on social media<\/a> \u2014 shared a clip of himself on Friday jumping out of a boat and\u00a0chasing a freshwater crocodile\u00a0through ankle-deep water before diving on it. <\/p>\n

He is seen laughing as he holds the reptile around the neck and claims, \u201cthis is what dreams are made of\u201d. <\/p>\n

The 31-year-old, with 15.5 million followers on Instagram alone, said he had dreamed of coming to Australia and seeing crocodiles up close since he was a child.<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, despite backlash, there was a new video. <\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s famous \u201cCrocodile Hunter\u201d Steve Irwin\u2019s father criticized an American influencer who posted viral videos of himself catching crocodiles in Far North Queensland. Newspix via Getty Images<\/p>\n

This time Holston chased and caught a small saltwater crocodile on a riverbank. <\/p>\n

The saltie was still and silent while the influencer held it by the neck, which experts say is completely uncharacteristic.<\/p>\n

In both videos the crocs were seen being released and were tagged as being filmed at Lockhart River on the Cape York Peninsula.<\/p>\n

Mike Holston, known as \u2018The Real Tarzan\u2019 on social media, was seen laughing as he held a crocodile around the neck and claimed, \u201cthis is what dreams are made of,\u201d after jumping out of a boat and\u00a0chasing the reptile. Instagram \/ @therealtarzann<\/p>\n

Now Steve Irwin\u2019s father Bob Irwin has come out swinging.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople visiting our country need to respect our wildlife, or they need to be booted out the door,\u201d he argued in an impassioned statement on Wednesday, which described Mr Holston as a \u201cd*ckhead\u201d and advocated for new nature laws to apply to social media.<\/p>\n

The 86-year-old conservationist slammed anyone trying to justify Holston\u2019s act by saying, \u201cbut Steve Irwin did it\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a Steve Irwin issue,\u201d Bob said. \u201cThis is about an individual interfering with protected fauna.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said comparing Holston\u2019s behavior to his son\u2019s \u201creally gets under (his) skin\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t even put them in the same sentence,\u201d he said, calling for the influencer to be prosecuted to the fullest extent current legislation allows.<\/p>\n

Irwin\u2019s father slammed anyone trying to justify Holston\u2019s act by saying, \u201cbut Steve Irwin did it\u201d. \u201cYou can\u2019t even put them in the same sentence,\u201d the conservationist said. WireImage<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this video the crocodile is clearly under extreme stress \u2013 it\u2019s disgusting,\u201d he continued, referring to the freshwater croc that moaned under Holston\u2019s grip.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who actually knows how to handle crocodiles knows they don\u2019t respond well to capture. It\u2019s a specialised skill to do it without causing dangerous stress and lactic acid build-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything Steve did, from the time he was a little kid, was to respect wildlife and share that message in a way that would give others a healthier respect for animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob warned social media was playing a huge role in \u201cencouraging and glorifying\u201d harmful wildlife interactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new wave of content is taking conservation down a concerning road,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese posts can have disastrous consequences for both people and wildlife. With crocodiles specifically, they face lethal management when the stunt goes wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you\u2019ve got to do is look at incidents in Queensland over the past two years and there\u2019s headlines detailing more reckless behavior with crocodiles as social media stunts. An influencer feeding a cooked chook to a crocodile in Babinda, or another from Canada who was catching freshies for likes and shares.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a runaway train and it sets a dangerous precedent for others to copy it. The more dramatic, or cruel the interaction, the more money these accounts make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob also took aim at authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe repeated line from our regulators \u2018we are investigating\u2019 in response to these incidents is wearing thin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are the environment authorities, who are tasked with the protection of our native wildlife, going to step up?<\/p>\n

\u201cThese posts can have disastrous consequences for both people and wildlife,\u201d Irwin said. \u201cWith crocodiles specifically, they face lethal management when the stunt goes wrong.\u201d Instagram \/ @therealtarzann<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message is only going to sink in when we see these so-called influencers held to account and understand that 15 million followers don\u2019t make you exempt from the laws that protect our wildlife. It was a free for all back in my day but it isn\u2019t now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an update on Wednesday, the Queensland Environment Department said it was investigating the two videos of a man capturing and restraining a freshwater crocodile and a saltwater crocodile in Far North Queensland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese actions are extremely dangerous and illegal, and we are actively exploring strong compliance action including fines to deter any person from this type of behavior,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe maximum penalty for interfering with a saltwater crocodile is $37,500 with an on-the-spot fine (penalty infringement notice) of $8,345.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us be clear: people should not attempt to capture freshwater or saltwater crocodiles in Queensland, unless they trained and licenced to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe maximum penalty for interfering with a saltwater crocodile is $37,500 with an on-the-spot fine (penalty infringement notice) of $8,345,\u201d a spokesman of the Queensland Environment Department said. Instagram \/ @therealtarzann<\/p>\n

news.com.au has reached out to Holston for comment.<\/p>\n

Bob Irwin\u2019s comments come after Dr Meg Shaw, Research Fellow at Monash University\u2019s BehaviourWorks \u2014 Australia\u2019s leading authorities on behavior change \u2014\u00a0slammed Holston\u2019s behavior\u00a0and drew attention to the \u201cdisastrous consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we see this kind of content posted online, the more it is normalised,\u201d Dr Shaw told news.com.au on Monday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cViewers can say to themselves \u2018oh, this person did it, so it must be fine\u2019. When these posts are paired with a huge volume of likes and comments, it can be even more motivating for viewers to mimic the behavior in pursuit of the same type of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Shaw said these types of posts can have \u201cdisastrous consequences for both humans and wildlife, beyond the immediate risks to serious injury or illness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy research has also shown that content showing human-wildlife interaction can make the animal seem less endangered than it actually is, can increase a viewer\u2019s perception that the animal would make a good pet, and can make the poster appear like they are not respecting animal welfare,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a way, this content is saying \u2018this animal is a prop, not a living being.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While Dr Shaw strongly criticized Holston\u2019s act, she praised Australia\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the influencer thrives on fuelling outrage, or perhaps he just felt he was above the rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, those crocodiles were used by the influencer as status symbols to try and show how \u2018cool\u2019 he is, rather than how amazing those animals are.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news story is, Australians are proud of the animals that call our country home. Often it\u2019s our mammals that get all the attention, so to see Australia just as protective over the crocodile as it was over the baby wombat is incredibly powerful.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just our cute and cuddlies that deserve respect, it\u2019s every creature that calls this country home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, another American influencer, Samantha Jo Strable, was filmed separating a baby wombat from its distressed mother<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was widely criticized \u2013 including by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese \u2013 for her actions, with calls for her to be deported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Strable later apologized<\/a> and insisted she was trying to remove the animal from the road to prevent it from being hit, adding she made a \u201csnap judgment\u201d to pick up the marsupial to check if it was sick or hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of Australia\u2019s famous \u201cCrocodile Hunter\u201d Steve Irwin has unleashed on an American influencer who posted viral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2851,19272,3258,90,35120,56,54,55,4407,231],"class_list":{"0":"post-128500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-crocodiles","10":"tag-influencers","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-steve-irwin","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wildlife","17":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}