The Last Crocodile Hunter

by Bob Irwin

  He shook my hand. When we made the usual eye contact, I noticed he appeared somewhat emotional. I realised that the end of his time in the bush was weighing heavily on his mind after the conversation we’d had the night before around the campfire. Being out here always grounded him because it was like his earthwire planting his feet firmly on the soil. The far north was a place he was deeply connected to his whole life. On this particular trip there had been no film schedule, no fans, just the like-minded team of people he’d chosen to surround himself with in the wilds of Australia he so loved.

  ‘See ya later, Bob.’

  He always called me Bob; he called me a lot of other things as well, but when we were on our own, he simply called me Bob. I liked that, it made me feel pretty close to him. Because after all of these years I didn’t feel like just his dad, we were more than just father and son. It went way beyond that, a long way.

  ‘See ya, Steve. Take it a bit easier,’ I said, fully aware that it was a waste of time saying anything like that, because Steve only had one way of doing things and that was flat out.

  I got in the truck, shaking out the pain in my hand from that handshake, well out of Steve’s view, and fired up the engine to traverse the two-thousand-kilometre journey home to Ironbark Station in south-east Queensland. I drove away feeling a portion of the weight of my son’s pain as I caught him in my rear-view mirror staring blankly at the red taillights of my truck. The truck’s lights were my wave goodbye. To me, he still looked just like that helpless blond-haired kid in an adult’s body, who had a robust, gung-ho exterior but was soft on the inside like the sinking mud of Cape York’s mangroves; that same little boy who, no matter how many times he’d beat himself up, still needed his mum or dad’s reassurance when he was in pain. As a parent, when your children suffer, you suffer too, no matter how old they grow to be. I knew that perhaps it was my little secret that he wanted to travel home with everyone else. He was with a group of people he understood, who were dedicated to the vision he had, and he was working with one of the most important creatures to him on the planet.

  You never expect that’s the last time you’re ever going to see your son, but I certainly had a feeling he sensed something was about to happen.

  Travel Log: Bob and Amanda (with John)

  90 KM OUT OF KOWANYAMA IN CAPE YORK, QUEENSLAND, SEPTEMBER 2014

  AMANDA

  Bob and I followed as John led the way back to the homestead along an unused dirt track winding its way through the dry cattle property we’d been camped on. In the midst of the drought, we had been anchored as close to watering holes as possible; we quite simply wouldn’t have survived without the cooling effects of water in the presence of the sweltering Far North Queensland sun. Not that the waterholes were that much cooler; they bordered on bath-like temperatures. The landscape outside the window was desolate, the bush was sparse, the grass that would naturally nourish the animals had been sunburnt out of existence, and the cattle were painfully thin as a result. It was an indicator also of the financial struggles cattle farmers in the north were facing, attributable to a combination of harsh weather events and the end product of banning live export to Indonesia a few years prior. As an avid supporter of the campaign to end the cruelty, I now suddenly felt like there were two sides to the story, this was the aftermath.

  I’d spent the last couple of weeks hearing personal struggles highlighting the rate of suicide in farming families up here following the foreclosure of properties by the banks. One of the victims was a young station hand whom Bob had developed a close friendship with, becoming a bit of a mentor to him. Just two years earlier Bob had returned from three weeks on this very property with him and his family, only hearing of this tragedy the day he made the long drive home to Camp Chilli. Bob was immensely troubled by his passing, wondering if there was something more he could have done, considering the friendship he had formed with him. He was so young, with immense pressures of hardship and little access to support outside of these remote areas. Sadly, his story was not an isolated event. Suicide is rife out here. There was no denying that farmers up in these remote parts of our country were doing it tremendously tough.

  All of a sudden, John’s vehicle came to a halt, the back of his ute looking as though it was about to come hurtling through the front of our windscreen as the dust around us exploded into the air. We came to an immediate stop, and after the dust had settled, I spotted a small poddy calf running out of the bush towards John, who dismounted from the truck to take a closer look. Bob jumped out of our vehicle to join John by the side of the gravel road.

  We had witnessed the end of a recent cattle muster on the property; it wasn’t uncommon after using helicopters to round up the herds from the air for calves like this to be split up from their nursing mothers. This calf had clearly been left behind, a stark reality of life on the land. When the calf saw us, she had desperation in her eyes. Her behaviour reminded me of a lost hiker coming across the first people she might have seen after days without food and water staggering out of the bush. Disorientated. Hungry. Sick. Looking into her wide black eyes, I was suddenly taken back to my time with a small elephant calf that I had helped to rescue a few years before in Sumatra. She was found wandering alone in a palm oil plantation while her herd was lying dead nearby. I could only imagine that her encounter with the first living thing that she saw would have been similar to this. Perhaps I was over-thinking the whole thing, but there was a similarity for me in this story.

  John offered the calf a drink of water. She guzzled it down, nudging him in desperation for more. As I got out of the car, I saw Bob shaking his head helplessly.

  Her ears were almost gone. What little was left of the ears was now oozing with infection and flies.

  ‘Bloody dingoes,’ Bob said, shaking his head.

  ‘Too far gone. I’ll grab the gun,’ John said despondently, and he went to fetch a gun that he used for feral animal control from the truck.

  I could feel hot tears escaping down my face. For some reason the water that fell from my eyes felt like boiling water in the scorching Cape York temperatures. I’d never seen anything killed before and I wasn’t at all prepared for it. The calf was nuzzling me for some more water, which made my tears start to stream even faster. I didn’t grow up in the country, and was considerably removed from the harshness of life and death in the animal world. In my world, death was boxed up and given to someone else to dispose of. My immediate, often naive response to critters suffering is to try and save them, whatever the cost. I realise it is not the best reaction at times, particularly when I’ve found myself working with wildlife in third world countries. Often there are no veterinarians available to save the day or in the event that there are, then they make a decision for you behind closed curtains.

  As John returned from the truck, he could see that I was uncomfortable with this idea. I tried to reason with my two mates. I felt like it was me against them. And it was for obvious reasons.

  ‘Can’t we just take her up to the homestead and see if they can help her?’

  ‘She’s in a really bad way. We need to put her out of her misery, it’s the right thing to do.’ John said.

  I continued to plead my case. As John began to soften, Bob hardened. He was silent and evidently annoyed with me. It’s the worst feeling in the world to receive that look from Bob knowing you’ve disappointed him. He doesn’t have to say anything; he just gives you that disapproving look over the top of his glasses. He walked back to the truck in a bit of a huff and got into the driver’s seat, leaving John and me there to continue our debate over what to do.

  For the first time since I’d met him, I felt angry with Bob. I wondered how this man with such compassion for all animals would not want to try and save this calf first. I realised, however, this was my own insecurity talking—my fear of witnessing death. If anyone was more experienced about making that call, it was Bob. Deep down, of course, I knew that.

  The next thing I knew, John had th
e calf over his shoulders and was loading it onto the tray of his ute. He’d completely given in to me. I could see Bob through his windscreen shaking his head as he lit another smoke and watched on. It could have been just as likely that the smoke that I saw was in fact coming out of his ears, and not the cigarette he had in his mouth. Saying he was annoyed was a bit of an understatement.

  At this point in time, I didn’t care. I told myself that I’d cop the wrath of Bob’s silent treatment later. Right now, I was immensely happy that I didn’t have to endure watching the calf being put down. John started tying up its legs and securing it on the back of the tray.

  ‘You’re going to have to lie on top of it all the way back. It’s not going to be a comfy ride.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. Whatever I had to do, I thought.

  To my surprise, Bob eventually wandered over and began helping, using his famous bush knot skills to speed up the process. No one can tie knots quite like Bob. He gave me John’s radio from the truck to wear on my belt in case I needed the truck to stop at any time. If I found myself sliding off or lying in a ditch on the side of the road hidden by a veil of thick red dust, he told me to radio in. I found this gesture endearing, showing some level of thoughtfulness despite his resistance to returning to the homestead with the calf. He made one final point before he returned to his truck.

  ‘You do realise it’s pointless, don’t you? They’ll only shoot it at the homestead anyway.’

  The next fifty kilometres were painful. It took two and a half hours to navigate our way over what can only be described as the dustiest, bumpiest track I’ve ever endured. I was straddled over the top of this calf as infection was pouring out of her poor ears all over me. Fine red dust was showering me as if someone was relentlessly emptying a bag of dry cement over me. The calf mooed each time the ropes pulled on her damaged little legs.

  Every part of me was aching by the time we eventually arrived back at the homestead. Covered from head to toe in red dust, I looked like an Oompa Loompa straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the only clean parts of me being my teeth and eyeballs, which stood out like a sore thumb in contrast to the rest. My hair had gone from blonde to bright red. I looked as though I’d just landed from a hiatus on Mars. The station managers, Andrew and Alby, came out to meet us and were amused at the sight of me. Alby just looked me up and down and burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re welcome to use our shower, love,’ she said.

  I am sure at this point Bob wished he’d left me back in south-east Queensland and not brought me out into a remote part of his world. Suddenly I didn’t feel prepared for the harshness of the world in which he lived, as much as I relished these adventures. Not only was I a sight for sore eyes, I’d brought them home an unwelcome gift—an animal that in everyone’s eyes should have been dealt with the way that they do in the country.

  The calf was unloaded into the house yard where there were a number of other orphaned poddy calves being hand-raised. I was relieved to know she had another chance at life, and that Alby had a personal interest in rehabilitating calves orphaned on the station.

  It ended up being another two full days on the road without a proper shower after that experience and I felt a right mess for those days. The next camp that we found with enough water to bathe in felt like an oasis. With the far north in the midst of a severe drought, most of the creeks that we’d planned to camp at on the way home were bone dry. We passed one dry creek bed after another. Now, Bob, John and I sat in the stream of water, unwinding. Like Jesus turning water into wine, the dust particles shedding off my body had quickly turned the otherwise crystal-clear water into mud. The refreshing cold water also had the healing effect of instantly lifting the mood of the previous few days. Now that the tiredness had started to subside and there was a period of time to reflect, Bob took this as a good moment to have one of his little Amanda–Bob chats with me. I felt like Mufasa and Simba down on the elephant graveyard.

  ‘You made me a bit cranky with that calf, you know.’

  ‘I know I did. I just wish I had a tougher exterior at times. I need to harden up, but I wasn’t born in the bush! It’s only now I’m learning about it all.’

  ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. When you truly care for an animal, it’s not a matter of simply liking animals and taking them into your care. It’s one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. And it’s actually the most common wake-up call for anyone getting into the wildlife industry. You’re learning to love something enough to let it go. You can’t do what you want with that animal. You’re doing what’s right for that animal, which is quite often tough love. It’s hard for us to understand that when we try and use our human emotions to understand the mechanics of the animal world. And when you’re working with wildlife, you’re facing life and death every single day. It brings you back to the appreciation that life is a privilege, because it can be taken so fast. And it happens in every species every single day.’

  ‘I understand. It’s very difficult for me to make a decision to let something die. I’m sorry that I didn’t let you do what was best.’

  ‘Working with wildlife also teaches you that animals face death differently. More often than not, animals aren’t afraid of death as we human beings are. That calf would have eventually lay down and let death come to her. And her death would have been horrific out here, because come nightfall, those dingoes would most likely have eaten her alive. Sometimes you want to intervene and you can’t. Sometimes it just feels very unpleasant to be kind.’

  ‘Why did you let me rescue her in the end? And go through all of that? You could have just shot her. After all, you make the rules out here,’ I said, half-smiling, already predicting his answer.

  ‘It was a lesson that you had to learn for yourself. That animal was suffering. You wanted that calf to live because it was what you wanted. And to be a good wildlife carer, you’ve got to look at it from the animal’s perspective, not your own.’

  I agreed with everything he was telling me. And I wondered what caring for animals had taught him about his own personal journey.

  ‘Did you develop a tougher exterior from working with animals? Has it helped you to cope in any way with loss because you were somewhat hardened by it?’ I asked.

  ‘Never. When you work with animals, you learn to know death very well. It’s never easy. And it’s no different from life in the human world really. We’re not going to be here forever, and I think we forget that as a species. Sadly, we aren’t immune from death despite the fact that we can make all of this progress as humans. Working with wildlife has taught me this, it has really driven home that we are all on this journey together. They die, we die. And yet we think we are above death. I think that’s why we make such devastating decisions for our planet too. We are having the same experience on this planet whether we are human or animal. But no matter how often you go through it, it never gets any easier. Whether it’s humans or animals, regardless of how often you have to let go of something that you profoundly care about, or that you have nurtured over a lifetime, it kills you. And that’s the whole point. I’m not saying that you can’t feel sad or that it shouldn’t affect you, not at all. The day you don’t feel something for that animal is the day you go and do something else. You have those feelings for a reason, that’s why you work with wildlife in the first place. But the day you don’t have them is the day that you get out of the wildlife industry altogether. You may as well go and lay bricks.’

  That night around the campfire, I was surprised when Bob continued on with this conversation. I quietly listened. That’s the thing about campfires: they’re the perfect setting for a story. Staring into the flickering light is sure to get anyone talking, even a man who would quite often prefer to sit in silence for our seventeen-hour non stop journeys.

  ‘You know what we talked about earlier? About loss?’

  ‘Yes’, I replied.

  ‘It never gets any easier, you know. No matter how many times you have
to go through it. It’s just as painful the first time as it is the second time. And let me just say, a crocodile could bite off my arm, I could fall off a roof or be bitten by a hundred venomous snakes. It’s got nothing in comparison to mental pain. That’s by far the worst of the human experience. There’s nothing that could even come close.’

  As the fire crackled over the next few hours, I was taken back to a time with Bob when his entire world as he knew it changed forever.

  ‘I spent my last time with Steve around a campfire like this. I never knew it would be the last time I’d ever see him. You never think that’ll be the last time you’ll see someone who was the biggest part of you.’

  *A few months later we found out the calf, of course, didn’t survive.

  11

  Losing you

  Judy Irwin

  Bob had only just recently returned home from his time with Steve and the team in Cape York. It was a Monday afternoon, 4 September 2006, and he was heading out to bury a cow that had died while calving on our property at Ironbark Station. I was in the work ute on another track when I caught sight of Bob. He’d suddenly dropped to the ground with his mobile phone in his hand.

  I hastily drove over to him. I thought he’d been injured. He was just sitting there propped up against his vehicle looking dazed and confused. He was slumped over and just staring at the ground, obviously in shock.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  Still staring in front of him, he said, ‘Steve’s had a serious accident and has died.’

  It was hard to fathom. Bob was staring at the ground. His son-in-law Frank, general manager of Australia Zoo, had called. It wouldn’t have been an easy job to break that kind of news to Bob. There would have been no words to lessen the blow. Whichever way it was said, it was going to shatter his world into a million pieces. And it did.