The Last Crocodile Hunter

by Bob Irwin

  First published in 2016

  Copyright © Bob Irwin and Amanda French 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone:(61 2) 8425 0100

  Email:info@allenandunwin.com

  Web:www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76029 237 9

  eISBN 978 1 95253 504 8

  Front cover photo: Amanda French

  Inset photo: Irwin family photo

  Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

  For Lyn and Steve

  Contents

  EpigraphLetter from Steve

  ForewordBob Irwin

  Author’s noteAmanda French

  Prologue

  1 A father figure

  2 Beerwah Reptile Park

  3 Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park

  4 The crocodile hunters

  5 Australia Zoo

  6 A sign of life

  7 Ironbark Station

  8 Reawakening

  9 The master’s apprentices

  10 The final expedition

  11 Losing you

  12 Goodbye to croc catching

  13 Camp Chilli

  14 Fight for it

  15 Return to Cattle Creek

  EpilogueKoolatah Station, Cape York, September 2015

  Two Bob’s worth

  A letter to my dadMandy Irwin

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Below is a letter from Steve to Lyn and me that he wrote a long time ago. I’ve lost a lot of precious memorabilia along my journey, and have very few photographs of Steve and our family to reflect on, so I particularly treasure this.

  Envelope inscription: Please be happy to know that your strength and wisdom has been passed on.

  Dear Mum & Dad,

  Probably one of the most unfortunate things in a bloke’s life is that it takes over 30 years to realise how essential you have been to build my character, my ethics and, most importantly, my HAPPINESS.

  At 32, I am finally starting to figure it out. In good times and in bad, you were there. Your strength and endurance to raise me will not go unrewarded. My love for you is my strength!

  For the rest of my life I will reflect on the unbelievably GREAT times we’ve shared and will continue to share. You’re my best friends!

  Thank you,

  Steve

  Foreword

  Bob Irwin

  ‘My dad, just the legend of the universe. When I was the tiniest

  little kid, I’d look up to my dad and he was larger than life;

  he was just this action hero. He was everything I wanted to be.

  And all I’ve done in my life is follow in his footsteps,

  mimic him and try to be him. And nowadays, I just try to

  make him proud, mate.’

  Steve Irwin, from interview with Andrew Denton on Enough Rope, ABC TV

  Certainly the proudest feeling I’ve had about building the zoo was giving Steve an outlet to harness some of his energy. Because in a very short period of time he managed to inspire millions of people around the world about nature conservation, using one animal that wasn’t all that easy to fall in love with—the crocodile, and yet crocodiles are incredible animals that date back to over 80 million years ago when there were no humans on this planet.

  I can’t imagine having lived a life without wildlife or having had the opportunity to connect so frequently with our natural world. To me, it doesn’t matter how often I see a black-headed python, or a crocodile, or whatever animal it may be, I always get excited. To understand how the bush has taught me so much, you have to realise that nature is communicating with us whichever way we turn. These days, in our busy lives, with such advancements in technology, we tend to forget the things that came so naturally to our ancestors. We’ve become oblivious to the whispers that are there to be heard. We can no longer be guided by a starry night, or smell danger blowing in on the wind, or migrate with the seasons, or track unwoven paths beneath our feet. But the animals can. We are the only species that has ever lived on this planet that destroys its own environment. No other species devastates the home in which it lives.

  When the script was written for nature, humans weren’t in the picture at all. We weren’t involved, we weren’t asked to be involved either, nature simply didn’t require us to be part of it. But unfortunately, since our short time on this planet, we’ve become the most dominant species and now we impose our will upon every living thing out there. And until we get to the point where we start to ask the question whether we intend to be successful and sustainable in the long-term, then we’re going to always have a big problem.

  For me, and for Steve, crocodiles were colossally misunderstood. They’re an animal that’s survived ice ages and some pretty catastrophic climatic changes over all these years, and they’re still doing well in our world today.

  When it comes to animal intelligence, the unfortunate thing is that we tend to look at it from a human perspective. We say that an animal is intelligent only when its actions make sense to us. And yet it is very hard to judge the difference between instinct and intelligence. Steve, because of his inquisitive nature, was able to get a better understanding of animals. He had an animal instinct right from an early age. He was never satisfied with learning about a species from a book or a scientific paper; no, Steve had to be out there amongst it observing the natural world around him.

  Through Steve’s passion and enthusiasm he was able to shine a spotlight on our natural world that wasn’t there before he came along. He had a unique way of connecting people with wildlife that was contagious. His success in the end was not something that I can necessarily take credit for either. But I guess, getting him into it as a kid and encouraging his interests was something that I was able to do as his dad. While I may have been the teacher in the early years, I certainly became the pupil later on. In Steve I found a likeminded friend with whom I could share my passion. Because it was Steve in the end who was able to teach me that passion alone has the ability to ignite a spark in others and send a warm glow over the rest of the world—and that’s exactly what he achieved. And yet it started out reasonably unsophisticated, getting muddy catching crocodiles in the mangroves and swamps of Far North Queensland. To have had the opportunity to venture to some of the most remote areas of Queensland over the years, and to be able to experience that with someone like Steve, who had the same interests and understanding that I have, that’s the part that I treasured most of all. That’s called passion, and if you ever lose that then you might as well get out of the wildlife industry all together, go and do something else. Because it doesn’t matter what you encounter out there, if you don’t get excited about that experience and feel something profound for that animal, then it’s probably time for a career change.

  I’m constantly reminded of his boundless energy, infectious humour and unrestrained passion for wildlife. When the world lost Steve,
the animals lost the best friend that they ever had, and so did I. But he’s still here, still with me, and I’m able to gain strength from him, and harness the same passion and drive that we had together. What he stood for and what he was able to achieve means just as much now as when he was here in this physical world. There are so many people who have been inspired by, and are still being inspired by, Steve Irwin. That’s something that makes me feel really, really proud.

  I only hope that sharing some of these stories reminds people of his enormous legacy, teaching not only the importance of reconnecting with our environment, but to be passionate in doing so. We can no longer live in isolation from the environment that nourishes us so well. We are interconnected with every single strand of it. Our own survival depends on its very health.

  Author’s note

  Amanda French

  Take one look at him. He’s a slight man, small in stature, pretty much guaranteed to have a smoke hanging out of the corner of his mouth, no doubt his tenth for the day. But I’d challenge anyone to underestimate him. Although this wildlife warrior is pint-sized, his inner strength is giant.

  It’s not brute strength and muscle that have got Bob by during his lifetime capturing some of this country’s largest crocs, it’s his endurance and drive. It’s ironic that his favourite animal has been the crocodile, an animal that’s survived many millions of years and seen out the world’s most drastic natural events. Because that’s what Bob is too: he’s a survivor. He’s battled from tragedy to triumph, time and time again, and yet he’s still got that getup-and-go, is still a voice for our wildlife. Where most of us would probably have thrown in the towel, he’s drawn strength from helping animals that have no voice, in a time in our world when we constantly place them under threat.

  I’ve been on many outback adventures with Bob supporting his advocacy work with his current platform—the Bob Irwin Wildlife & Conservation Foundation Inc. One of my first trips was to an arid property in outback New South Wales. Looking out over the cracked, dry, red soil plains, I privately wondered why on earth we’d travelled for sixteen hours non-stop to see nothing but a desolate landscape. I loved wildlife, but usually the big kind, the kind that demanded your attention. It’s all too easy to overlook the smaller, often forgotten, creatures. It was on this trip with Bob that I suddenly realised I had been guilty of this.

  He pointed out the type of finch flitting by, the grip on a gecko’s hand, or the way a spider was waiting in its web. He knew every reptile we saw by name, and precisely how many days it incubated its eggs. He understood how everything fitted together in that entire ecosystem. It became clear to me that nothing out there survives in isolation from its environment and every little creature plays a vital part. His passion was undeniably contagious, and before long I had caught it too. I had never experienced a shift in myself as rapid as that.

  He’d be up at the crack of dawn, more excited than a kid on Christmas morning, to see what wildlife he might stumble across. Day after day, he stood up there on the back of our moving vehicle, looking for a sign of anything that had slithered or burrowed just out of sight and he’d be out of the truck like a flash the second he saw it. I wish I could have bottled that passion. I worry about the world of conservation when he’s gone, well aware that it won’t be long before Bob is not physically able to do the things he does now. I have also never met someone with more compassion than him, even for the tiniest little lizard. When we set out one afternoon to dig up some ant burrows, he apologised to the inhabitants for digging up their home. When he had identified the ants, he replaced it all to the best of his ability, putting things back the way he had found them.

  Bob is the last of his breed of bushman. He can tie any knot, track animals by instinct, survive in the bush and tell a bloody good yarn by the fire. But try to connect him with today’s technology and you’re in for a challenge. He eats only meat and three veg and drinks only Bushell’s tea. ‘Water’s for showering in,’ he says. He’ll walk out of any restaurant serving native wildlife, happily get arrested for standing up for what he believes in and won’t be seen driving anything but a Toyota Landcruiser ute.

  At forty years Bob’s junior, I have lived in a very different time for our environment. I’ve only known a life where rainforests are vanishing and animals are endangered. Bob’s right when he says that my generation are equipped with the knowledge to make a change. Let’s hope we haven’t left it too late.

  Bob is the first to admit that he doesn’t do people all that well. But I disagree. He’s everyman’s hero, recognised in some of the most remote places across Australia, and welcomed by other down-to-earth bushies who want to shake his hand and have their photo taken with Bob. Despite tiring on his long tours to spread his environmental message, he insists on giving time to each and every person he meets who wants to talk about how much Steve inspired them, or what they’re doing for our wildlife. Bob always tells me that you had to be pretty genuine to work with Steve, and throughout the time I’ve been fortunate enough to spend in Bob’s company, I’ve learnt that’s Bob through and through as well. Never tolerating a fool, the way to his heart is really quite simple: hard work, humour, Bushell’s tea.

  Writing this story has been an adventure in itself. We travelled twenty thousand kilometres, criss-crossing the east coast of Australia. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted. There weren’t always showers or flushing toilets in the isolated places where we ventured. We didn’t sightsee, we were on a mission. Along the roads less travelled we encountered native wildlife I never even knew existed, cried as we saw parts of our Great Barrier Reef dying right before our eyes, and rejoiced as we unearthed a community of dedicated, steadfast individuals working tirelessly to save our environment and the precious wildlife that call Australia home.

  These long-haul trips also earned me a special friendship with this grandfather of conservation, and along the way Bob entrusted me to capture his story. His stories were told to me exactly where Bob needed to be to tell them. By the campfire. Beside a crocodile-infested river. In the middle of nowhere. The wild is where Bob comes to life, it’s where he belongs. For Bob, a very private man, writing this book could only happen long after the events depicted. Time and distance have allowed him insight into the unbelievable losses that have come his way.

  The man’s got 77 years’ worth of stories to tell that paint a picture of an ordinary man who has lived an unlikely extraordinary life. It’s time for Bob Irwin to tell his story: the story of the man behind so many great things for Australian wildlife, the last of his kind. ‘Who is Bob Irwin?’ you might ask. Well, he’s just Bob, and that means more to the everyday Australian who thought that they couldn’t make a difference. If Bob did it, so can you. He’s every bit the father of the man and finally . . . this is his story.

  Prologue

  I have always felt the weight of the environment on my shoulders, metaphorically speaking of course. But the story of how I found my true way in this world starts more literally: I was buried alive. My story starts not six but fourteen feet underground.

  I was entombed down a shaft, with earth bearing down on my trapped body. The mud and dirt enveloping me was suffocating. Every second that passed transformed the oxygen trapped in a tiny pocket around my face into dense, asphyxiating anguish. If I had been able to move them, my hands could have cut the thick, suffocating air with a knife. The only thing keeping me alive was another pocket of air trapped beneath my hunched-over body. The load of the compacted clay earth was crushing and it thrust me uncomfortably down on the handle of the axe I had been holding when the cave-in happened. The wooden handle was stuck upright beneath me, slowly winding me as it pushed further into my stomach. My short breaths became gasps as I rapidly ran out of precious oxygen.

  I could hear muffled shouting from above but I couldn’t call out. I couldn’t move a muscle. All I could do was wait there, unresponsive and limp, my life in the hands of my quick-thinking father-in-law, Pa, on the surface. I waited anx
iously, with nothing left to do but contemplate my likely fate. I pictured myself discovered like a Palaeolithic specimen fossilised in the viscous clay. This is it, I thought, I’m not getting out of here alive. Here is where it ends for Bob Irwin, at the bottom of a hole that I’ve literally dug for myself. And as I pondered the irony of the situation, concluding that this wasn’t what I’d signed up for, I passed out.

  On the surface, Pa panicked as he realised that he wouldn’t be able to manually dig me out before I suffocated. We had been ‘shaft and tunnelling’—where you dig two shafts and then tunnel at the bottom in between them—by hand with a pickaxe and shovel. After digging the first fourteen-foot shaft, I had been standing at the bottom when the whole thing caved in, burying me alive.

  Pa was an older man with injuries sustained from a bullet to his back in the war, so he wasn’t physically capable of digging me out by hand. The machine he was operating could have done the job, but it would most likely have dug me up as well, most likely in bits. So he made the astute decision to jump into the car and hastily pick up my young brother-in-law and plumbing apprentice, Graeme, from trade school to get me out. He frantically dug me out by hand, eventually dragging my lifeless body to the surface.

  As I lay there coated in thick mud as though the earth had just given birth to me as a grown man, I drew what felt like my first proper breath. If I’d been down there a moment longer, it would surely have been my end. Saying that I felt ordinary was an understatement as I slowly regained my faculties. I should have gone to the hospital, but protested and insisted on being taken home. I felt near death, fatigued and defeated by a job that I had slowly but surely started to detest.

  When I got home all I could do was lie down on the kitchen floor inside the front door, resembling some kind of creature of the swamp, mud and all. I stared up at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself. I had grown to quite simply hate the type of work I had found myself doing, and that day it had nearly cost me my life. And to make matters worse, I knew that tomorrow I would only have to dig that bloody hole again from scratch.