More comments from friends about the late Crocodile Hunter:
I have always thought of Steve Irwin as a likable boofhead rather than a serious contributor to our understanding of biology (durrrh!). Though his almost childlike enthusiasm was genuine and endearing, his need to jump on small animals and have them squirm in his hands was at some remove to the very much “hands-off and observe” approach of the David Attenborough school and would seem to be more in kin to the way a baby explores its environment by putting things in its mouth and tasting. He has done much to switch people on to nature and raised important issues to a new audience. The room he once filled with his huge personality is sadly empty; he is missed.
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Our opinion of Steve Irwin is someone who was passionate about what he did. He loved life and his family. He didn’t do anything half measure. This is the impression we got of him from the media and people who we know who had dealings with him.
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I watched Steve mainly for the wonderful places he visited and the interesting animals he harassed. Not so much for his personality or to be educated by him. He was a wild-eyed Australian version of Marlin Perkins (although I’ve never met a zoologist who didn’t have at least a sparkle in their eyes), the zoologist on Wild Kingdom, a similar program I used to watch as a boy. They really were much the same program: a crew on a fantastic location to film, harass and capture wild animals for an up-close and personal view in the name of conservation and public education. Both definitely had the danger and excitement elements that made the programs fun to watch but Steve was a bit more charismatic than Marlin and tended to focus on smaller, less furry and feathery animals than Marlin – the types of things I’m more interested in. Both programs were worthwhile endeavours in my estimation and highly entertaining to someone like me who maintains similar aspirations. I visited his zoo back in 2001 and almost got to meet him but grew tired of waiting for an appearance. I did enjoy the day we spent there as it was a taste of things to come as we set off to find the animals we saw in his zoo, in their natural environment on our month-long tour of coastal Queensland.
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This last post on Australia Zoo shows some of our native snakes, some of which live around my place but many of which are “outback” species. Many (except the pythons) are very venomous, and dangerous to people if people disturb them (quite rightly, too). I’ll leave you to research them individually if you are interested.
The king brown (Pseudechis australia) is actually a member of the black snake family, so mulga snake is the preferred name.

Mulga snake
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