Steve Irwin

“My fingers clamped around the croc’s thick neck and my chin slammed into its bony head as my chest landed on its back and my legs wrapped around the base of the tail. With eyes wide open I was being thrashed around in the muddy water. I saw pulses of light as I rolled over and over. There’s no way I was letting go and I hung on for grim death.” This is how Steve Irwin described one of his famous croc captures. Steve is my hero because of the extreme amount of passion he had for animals and how much he genuinely cared for others.

Born in Essendon, Australia on February 22, 1962, Steve began to show his passion and dedication towards wildlife and environmental conservation from an early age. Most of Steve’s childhood was filled with numerous adventures and countless animal encounters from spotting animals to basically living in the outback. Steve spent many years watching his father capture crocodiles almost as routinely as brushing his teeth. Soon his dad would teach him the Irwin technique of catching a crocodile.

As Steve grew up, so did his passion for animals. The slaughter of crocodiles had fueled him. Now as Steve was old enough to trap and relocate crocodile’s by himself he spent most of his late teens working under the East Coast Crocodile Management Program. There he relocated problem crocodiles from populated areas and they usually wound up in a zoo or in the wild.

Steve had an amazing ability to attract audiences. He usually did this through his very popular television show, “The Crocodile Hunter.” As more and more people tuned in to watch Steve in his daring and heroic missions Steve created almost a fad for wildlife protection shows. As he did this he also got more people to really care about what he was trying to do and that was saving innocent animals.

It was a shock to hear of the tragic death of Steve, whose passion for wildlife conservation and his lovable and charismatic manner made him a hero to millions. Steve described himself as a “wildlife warrior”, and that is what he was. He was someone who fought for those who didn’t have a voice to speak for themselves, someone with a big heart and great love for wildlife, for his country, and most of all for his family.