The Last Crocodile Hunter

by Bob Irwin

  It was Steve’s long-haul trips to America that had me sweating under the collar as I anxiously awaited his return. He’d always come back with new ideas for the welding team. Steve never relaxed; I’m not entirely sure he was capable of stilling his restless mind. He was always coming up with new ways to improve his methods and better understand animals. The ideas seemed to flow from a bottomless pit: they just kept on coming at him like an automated tennis ball machine firing one ambitious project after another. I could only imagine those cogs in his poor brain working overtime while he sat strapped in his seat. The confines of an aeroplane would have been testing for a man who had more ideas brewing than he was capable of fitting into one human lifespan.

  ‘Trev, I’ve got twenty-four hours to sit on a plane when I go to America to dream up all of the things for you to make for me when I get back!’

  And this is exactly how I came to join my first fully fledged crocodile research trip with the Australia Zoo croc team to the far-flung location of the Nesbit River.

  ‘I want you to build me a floating crocodile trap, Trev.’

  Of all the weird and wonderful things Steve had challenged me to make, this was one of the most intimidating tasks yet. Over their lifetimes, Steve and Bob had fine-tuned methods of crocodile capture that were widely recognised as the most tried and tested methods around. They were the most skilled crocodile catchers of their time and over the years they had pioneered new styles of soft-mesh bag traps.

  The bag traps that were previously used were effective, but now the team was forging into new areas like the Nesbit River with unfamiliar tidal environments. You had to put a lot of thought into where you put your bag traps. A floating crocodile trap would be more practical. Our existing bag traps were always worrying for a team of people if you had to set the trap in a really muddy, mangrove-lined riverbank where you sank up to your knees with each step. In certain instances there was no suitable site to set the traps because of the sinking mud or too much vegetation along the banks. A lot of time was spent trying to find locations suitable for the traps. The water level on the Nesbit varied a lot. So you had to be careful when setting a bag trap that you took into account the rise and fall of the tide, because you wouldn’t want to catch a crocodile in the middle of the night if you’d set your trap down too low and the tide came in and covered the whole thing.

  Steve knew we could always do things better. He was always forging ahead to make the process less stressful for the crocodile and the work environment safer for the team. The design of a floating, all-terrain crocodile trap was a way to streamline this process and make it easier. The traps travelled up in sections on the back of our rigs and would be assembled like a meccano set on location. It took many hours to get them together in Cape York’s relentless heat.

  I had never been in the position of having to capture a wild crocodile. As these traps were a fairly new concept, everything was experimental. You certainly couldn’t have tested these out on the Sunshine Coast. We needed to work with them directly in the field, improving them with every live crocodile capture we faced.

  By the conclusion of the trip, we’d perfected a new floating crocodile trap that had all of us excited about the opportunities it might give us in the future. It meant we could capture more crocodiles, collecting more data on each trip. It was like Christmas for Steve, with new toys for our cutting-edge research.

  With so much equipment out in a remote part of the world, it became increasingly important to have someone on site who could fix things when they buckled under pressure. And pressure they had with the wild Top End terrain that we put our gear through—it was tough going. We traversed a dramatically changing landscape across untouched areas of national parks as large as some small countries. Up and down muddy slopes in vehicles using low range, rolling trailers down washouts, towing vehicles out of many nail-biting situations, sinking boats, winching fallen logs off our paths—there was always the chance that something would need repairing on these untamed explorations. We drove our equipment to its full capacity, and Steve drove our team even harder. This was the first time I’d had the opportunity to work with Bob and Steve together in their world, a place where this father-and-son dynamic was on fire, burning brightly in front of our team of eager apprentices.

  Steve and Bob had long had a fascination with ocean-going crocodiles and this trip had taken us to the perfect location to get a closer look at them. The Nesbit River was a distinct ecosystem on the Cape York Peninsula with a river system flowing into the Coral Sea of the South Pacific Ocean. Despite being named saltwater crocodiles, very little was known about these animals’ time spent basking and hunting on the Great Barrier Reef. The Nesbit area was also comprised of around thirty-nine nationally important wetland systems. We were perfectly placed in the middle of super-croc country.

  This couldn’t have been more apparent to the team the night we finally reached our camp on the Nesbit River. After travelling 1850 kilometres from the Sunshine Coast, we finally arrived, weary from battling the hardships of an unforgiving environment. Our team had spent days on the road in a cavalcade of utes and four-wheel drives towing the equipment necessary for the research expedition. We were a khaki-clad army loaded with crocodile traps, tents, ropes and food. We had everything but the kitchen sink in order to create a home away from home in a very remote part of Australia.

  After we’d set up camp in record time to beat the descending orange fireball that was the sun, nightfall began to sink its teeth into the vanishing afternoon. The daylight had been exchanged for a swathe of stars overhead, while everything else around us was blanketed in darkness. You couldn’t help but stare transfixed as you contemplated how big the universe was. The beauty of this wilderness area suddenly made the hardship of our journey feel insignificant.

  The serenity was quickly disturbed by the realisation that the Nesbit River was now lapping against the banks uncomfortably close to our tents. Being a new area to us, we hadn’t realised how high the tide was going to creep in. We had unknowingly timed our set-up a few hours before at the Nesbit River’s dramatic tidal low, and now it was lapping at the front flaps of our tents.

  Pulling out my torch to assess the situation, I pointed a beam of light slowly into the obscurity ahead and all I could see were reflective red-eye shines from crocodiles looking in. All that was visible were glittery dots in the sky and glowing eyes on the water. It was really hard to distinguish where the stars ended and the eye shines began. You could easily have imagined that the stars had fallen out of the sky and into the river. In terms of our research, this was exciting, but in terms of our peace of mind it was the kind of stuff that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Crocodile soup was out there waiting for us.

  But we were so exhausted from the adventurous journey that we decided to stay put. Some of the boys were a safe distance back, but Bob and I were in tents the closest to the swelling river. At the peak of the high tide, if I’d made a really big step, my feet would have been wet the moment I stepped out of the tent. A crocodile could have wandered quite easily into either of our tents without even drying out; he’d have left wet footprints all over the place. I didn’t admit this to the other boys at the time, but that first night I slept with one eye open wide. A few days later, Bob admitted that he didn’t sleep well that night either. And that’s something coming from a bloke who has no fear.

  It was only a few short hours later that a disturbing noise disrupted the Cape York mosquito orchestra that was playing in my tent. Steve was animatedly banging pots and pans around our campsite like a deranged one-man band, a camp alarm clock signalling that it was time for checking traps to see what crocodile goodies may have been awaiting us from the night before. We had to get out on the river as early as we could, which was just after daylight. Some of the traps were set in direct sunlight, and Steve didn’t want to leave crocodiles exposed to the sun.

  As a bunch of dishevelled boys crawled sheepishly out of their tents with thei
r eyes half closed, my torch threw a spotlight on Steve, who was looking back at me with a big grin. It was clear that he got a real kick out of unnerving the troops at an ungodly hour.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ he said.

  Like a bull at a gate, he had us up long before the day had even woken up itself. This was the kind of place where Steve came alive, and we knew we had to up the ante in terms of our work ethic just to keep up with his gusto.

  ‘Now you’re up, we may as well get out on the water!’

  Everyone was on standby back at camp, getting their gear ready for a day of catching crocodiles, as Steve and Bob hit the water to monitor the traps set overnight up the river. This was always a job they did together. We waited anxiously for a radio call from Steve to say there was a croc or more in the traps. When it came, we’d spring straight into gear like a well-oiled machine ready for a big day of processing crocodiles. Everyone knew their roles.

  The weeks that followed saw us trapping crocodiles with the new floating traps and fitting the crocs with satellite trackers. It was a process of learning whether the translocation of crocodiles actually worked. For years, the protocol in crocodile management was relocating so-called problem crocodiles from one area to another where they would establish a new territory away from people. We were moving them around fifty kilometres to see if they’d return home or if they’d happily take up a new territory. This research was critical because it proved that crocodiles were turning up exactly where we’d first found them. The crocodiles were returning home. They were defying everything we thought we knew before, that relocating a problem crocodile was a solution. Steve and Bob turned on its head everything they’d known about crocodiles during a life of working with this species.

  The last few days of the trip, working down on the edge of the river, was a time I’ll never forget. Steve and I had been in and out of the water all day fine-tuning the mechanics of a floating trap. Despite my preference for wearing jeans in the stifling heat of Cape York, on this rare day I sported a pair of shorts. This amused Steve no end, as he’d never seen me in anything but my trademark jeans. He thought it was hilarious, the first time he’d seen my lily-white legs in broad daylight. He just pointed to my knees and laughed like crazy. ‘Have a look at his legs. I can’t stop looking at his legs. He’s got knee beards. Briano, get this man some jeans!’

  The three of us had a good laugh, none more so than Steve, who couldn’t get through his next line of filming without laughing hysterically whenever he caught a glimpse of me out of the water.

  Not wanting to give him ammunition again the following morning, I had emerged to start our final day at camp in my blue denim strides. Steve took immense pleasure in finding another window to poke some fun at me. ‘Thanks for putting your jeans back on. We couldn’t have taken those legs any longer.’ He laughed as he bent down to pick something up. ‘There’s only one thing left to do.’

  Steve pulled out his knife, which resembled something out of a Crocodile Dundee movie. Before I had time to say, ‘That’s not a knife!’, Steve had hacked off my jeans from just above the knee. We stood around laughing before he shook my hand. Steve always shook hands as a sign of his sincerity about something. When he did, you knew that it was something from the heart. He made a habit of doing this with a lot of the younger boys on the team as he watched them enter into adult situations over the years like proposing to their partners or buying their first homes. He was old-fashioned like that. So it was all jokes aside while he shook my hand.

  ‘Nice sharing crocs with you, mate. You’re a bloody champion.’ He said this genuinely as he ruffled the hair on my head with his hand, nearly sending my hat flying off into the water. He then addressed the rest of the team, who were looking on. ‘This bloke built all of my traps. Best engineer. Best mate I’ve ever had.’ Then he looked at me, laughing. ‘But you’ve got to get an operation on those legs.’

  I was thrilled, despite the fact that I needed a new pair of jeans. In his unique way, Steve was giving my new traps the seal of approval. It was moments like that one that made it all worthwhile. I believed I could do whatever I put my mind to. And when it was all done and dusted and we drove home tired, bruised and weather-beaten, it was moments like these that had me counting down the days to getting back on the road with the team again.

  So now it’s just a standing joke that I can’t go anywhere without my trademark jeans. It’s kind of stuck with everyone ever since. These days, I always wear my jeans with pride and smile at the memory of being in an isolated environment learning unforgettable lessons from Steve Irwin.

  FRANK MIKULA, AKA LEFTY

  ‘I’ve got a job for you to do, Lefty.’

  One of the last jobs I was asked to do as a young volunteer at Australia Zoo was to rake an area required for a film set within the park. I had already stayed back after my 3 p.m. finishing time when my manager came to tell me that Steve had a job for me to do.

  ‘Here’s a rake,’ he said.

  We got in the car, and I thought, ‘Sure, I’ll do a little bit of raking.’ When we arrived there, I realised there was about a hundred metres of pathway to rake. Just a few days later I realised that Steve had found out about the extra mile I had gone that day.

  It was 1999. Unexpectedly a position became available for me planting trees and building fake rocks on the landscaping team. With my career ambition to be a park ranger when I finally graduated from university, I jumped at the chance. Before too long I had graduated from doing general maintenance to working within the bird department. Birds then led to alligators, and within a few months I was working with crocodiles. My ambition had very quickly shifted from park ranger to croc keeper, and before too long I was invited along on crocodile research trips.

  Before we set off, we were briefed on the extreme nature of camp life. But nothing prepared us for the reality. In those saltwater environments, the mosquitos are insane. You have to cover your skin in Aerogard, otherwise you’ll just be eaten alive by mozzies. You’d wake up in your tent and they’d be hovering by your face just waiting to bite you. So the second you were showered, you would coat yourself in Aerogard. Your skin would turn to fish scales by the end of the camp.

  Steve’s ability to make even the smallest person feel bulletproof was amazing. The Nesbit trip was my first invitation to join the rest of the boys on a full-blown crocodile research expedition after our training expedition the year before.

  One day we were following Steve to check a trap when we realised that the floating trap had sunk. We managed to get a small crocodile out of the trap, but it only had one rope secured around its jaws. Steve was pulling him to shore as if he was walking a dog on a lead. But before he knew it, he’d snapped the top jaw rope, so without a moment’s hesitation, Steve jumped on top of the croc waist-deep in the water.

  Without even thinking, all four of us turned and jumped on the back of the crocodile too. Steve was hanging on to its head, calculating his next move and all of ours.

  ‘This is so dangerous it’s not funny. The jaws are free!’ he shouted to us.

  We had to get him on to semi-dry land. Then Steve fell down a hole, with a croc sitting there in his lap.

  In hindsight, throwing yourself on an unrestrained crocodile in the water seems ludicrous. Just because someone else jumps off a bridge, do you go and leap off the bridge too? Of course, human instinct says, ‘Don’t jump on a crocodile in the water,’ but everyone did. We all had each other’s backs.

  Steve and Bob were skilled professionals. And Steve’s apprenticeship had lasted a lifetime. I suppose that’s why we leapt straight in the deep end with Steve. We were confident that he knew what he was doing. It’s like being in the passenger seat next to a seasoned helicopter pilot. You want to fly with someone who is experienced and has clocked up plenty of hours. Steve was a master of his trade, a born leader and we were ready to fly with him.

  Steve was always aware of everyone else’s position and what they were doing, and w
ith that, at the end of the day, everyone was going home with their limbs intact. He was very good at getting everyone to do the job efficiently.

  10

  The final expedition

  Six-mil rope, Lakefield National Park

  ‘Six-mil!’ Steve commanded, covered in thick mangrove mud while face-down hanging on to the head of a fifteen-foot, 550-kilogram saltwater crocodile. The mud was never our desired place to restrain a crocodile, because a slippery crocodile is a dangerous one. In this pristine, untouched part of the world, we just kept pulling out bigger and bigger crocodiles from our traps each and every time. It was a good sign that crocodiles were thriving without humans encroaching in their environment as was occurring in the ever-expanding urbanised areas of the fastest growing state in Australia, the east coast of Queensland. The Queensland government’s crocodile management in response to human–crocodile conflict in these parts was still in its infancy.

  I took my usual position right beside Steve next to the jaw of the animal, holding it down while I observed the extreme intensity of this particular crocodile capture. It was so tense that you could have cut the already thick, humid top-end air with a knife. We were nearing the end of our time on the Kennedy River in Lakefield National Park, one of our most ambitious crocodile research trips yet. As a team, we had processed for the purpose of scientific data over fifty crocodiles by the conclusion of the trip. It was the largest number of crocodiles processed in the history of Australia Zoo’s collaborative crocodile research expeditions.

  As a result of that impressive outcome, the team had almost reached their limit, they were physically hurting all over. From the early hours of the morning, day after day, they’d be covered in thick mud and surrounded by a dense wall of sandflies and mosquitos. Before they could give their heartbeat a chance to return to its resting rate, they’d be off to set more traps. But nobody ever complained. We knew what needed to be done and we’d be back in the dinghies cruising along the river to start the process all over again.