The Last Crocodile Hunter

by Bob Irwin

  Travel log: Bob and Amanda on the road

  WHALE OF A CAMPAIGN, HERVEY BAY, FRASER COAST, QUEENSLAND, JUNE 2010

  AMANDA

  Bob didn’t know me from a bar of soap so I was initially apprehensive to get in contact with him via the RSPCA and invite him to be the ambassador of a rally I was organising that highlighted the plight of the humpback whale, a species that had put my beachside hometown on the map as the whale watch capital of the world. There was nowhere else in the world like it where the whales stopped on their migration for a five-day holiday safely unwinding in our warm protected waters—and it was an experience of a lifetime for tourists to see these forty-ton majestic giants at close range. I knew of Bob, but he certainly knew nothing about me. I was just one of hundreds of ordinary faces that had passed through the Australia Zoo gates after Steve’s sad passing. It was in working at the zoo that I came to know of his story and his life working with wildlife, and I couldn’t think of another person in our country more dedicated than him to represent our cause. As a down-to-earth, authentic conservationist with a frank voice for wildlife, he embodied the Irwin trademark. His was the voice that would command the much-needed attention of an entire community on a day giving a platform to our whales. I ran through every name for wildlife on television that I could think of and none resonated with me more so than Bob’s, especially after the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society had recently named their anti-whaling vessel The Steve Irwin, with Bob proudly attending the launch. But I was not holding out for a return phone call, because I had absolutely no connection to him.

  We needed a big drawcard for our small local event to expose the issues the whales were facing with Japanese whalers increasingly hunting in the waters of Australia’s southern whale sanctuary, a protection zone declared by our own federal government to safeguard the whales but with no tangible enforcement. The very humpbacks that were worth $70 million to our local economy were passing through these perilous hunting grounds on each migration after exciting the hordes of tourists in our safe protected waters of Hervey Bay, and we needed greater awareness of the issue. What shocked me to my core was learning that our region’s iconic whale, Nala, identified by researchers Trish and Wally Franklin over thirty-years of returning to Hervey Bay, had been biopsied by so-called ‘scientific’ researchers, a facade for Japan’s lethal whale hunt. I was told this news onboard a scientific research expedition, during a rare encounter with Nala herself watching her majestically raise her precious four-week-old calf on her back up to the surface of the water to show us. She held her high above the water in reaching distance from the boat. She did this over and over in the most beautiful display I had ever seen. For the first time in my life, I felt a fire lit in my belly as tears streamed from my eyes. I had never made the connection between our very own whales and the Japanese whale hunt and I knew that other people in our community surviving off whale tourism wouldn’t either.

  I was surprised a few days later while sitting at home to receive a phone call from Bob himself accepting my invitation on the proviso that he funded his own travel, a seven-hour round-trip from his home at Camp Chilli. This was to be one of my first campaigns as a public spokesperson for something I wanted to stand up for, and I knew that with his trusted name backing it, we would have a far greater chance of getting our message to the masses. The whaling issue had long been aligned with pot-smoking, bongo-playing hippie activists, and we wanted to host an event that showcased a different kind of activist, highlighting the everyday Australians from all walks of life who were concerned about whaling in our waters after we as a nation had reduced the humpback species to just a few hundred individuals in the 1960s. Whaling stations in Australia and New Zealand had killed over forty thousand humpback whales. After the decimation of their population, the hunting of humpbacks finally ceased in 1963, and two years later they were protected worldwide after a dramatic decline in numbers globally. In just fifty short years, numbers have thankfully recovered to a reported twenty thousand individuals on the east coast of Australia. Business owners, residents, tour operators and tourists would rally together with one simple message: that whales were worth more alive than served up for food. I considered Bob Irwin my key to doing this.

  Although I was excited to see one of my greatest wildlife heroes arrive on the morning of the rally, by the time Bob appeared on the beach that morning my excitement had turned to despair. I greeted him with a despondent frown while handing him that day’s local newspaper. After weeks of engaging various media, which up to this point had been in favour of our cause, I had experienced my first bout of public criticism in response to staging the event. An influential member of the local community had written a half-page column criticising me personally for ‘ramming conservation down people’s throats’, depicting the event as if outraged activists were to chain themselves to paddle boards. I felt devastated thinking that the day was set to be a failure after months of tireless preparation. I suppose I hadn’t considered there’d be divided opinions on such an issue. Bob took the article and read it with a disarming grin. He looked up from the newspaper and grabbed me by the shoulders as he gave me his reassuring feedback.

  ‘Congratulations! Welcome to the world of advocacy. Don’t worry about that drip! This is exactly what this whole thing is all about. Getting your message out there and standing up for what you believe in. You’ll always be challenged along the way, but if you believe in something strongly enough you’ll always achieve what you set out to achieve. That’s called passion. You should feel really, really proud. It’s going to be a great event!’

  The day finished up exceeding our expectations, with thousands of people turning out to paddle out for the whales. With Bob’s recognisable face behind this event, we were able to make a cohesive stand in showcasing our community as a stronghold for whale conservation in a peaceful but powerful way. Without a dollar in our budget to market the event, the community had turned out in their masses. People had donated their time, resources and money in order to stage the event, driven by one thing—that they genuinely cared. That moment sparked something within me, and Bob’s words about the importance of taking a stand for what you believe in kept echoing in my mind. I felt immensely proud as I realised that I’d tapped into a world of like-minded, compassionate people; whale lovers from across our community had come out of the closet. In the days that followed, Bob was quoted in countless newspapers as a spokesperson for this event, spreading our message far and wide; he’d even written to the local newspaper in response to that critical article and congratulating the local community for being a stronghold for the whales. At the end of the night as we were packing down the tents and cleaning up the beach, I turned around to see Bob still sitting there transfixed by a movie about the cause playing on the open-air screen underneath the stars. I hadn’t expected him to attend the entire event, but there he was, one of the last people on the beach, watching on as Captain Paul Watson from the Sea Shepherd spoke passionately about the whale war happening in the southern ocean. I went and sat with Bob on the sand, and he turned to me and sincerely thanked me for involving him in such an important day for our whales. I couldn’t believe he was thanking me for this; it was to him that I attributed the success of the event. Just before he left, Bob told me that he wished to assist me in campaigning for other wildlife that I opted to fight for in the future.

  ‘Whatever you’re doing, I want to know about it,’ he said.

  Twelve months later, it was an operation to save a baby elephant in Sumatra named Bona, rehoming an abused sun bear called Johnny and getting behind the issues facing countless other wildlife groups across Australia in a similar way that Bob supported me as we travel from one end of the country to the other in an important crusade for wildlife. He has never accepted payment for his time, or even fuel for his vehicle. He’ll decline an offer of accommodation despite the fact that he’s covered hundreds of kilometres in a single sitting. He’s driven by a genuine desire to help people
who are on the frontline of saving our native wildlife. That day standing on the beach, it was Bob who taught me the importance of finding my voice to speak up for those less fortunate than me. He has taught me the importance of helping others with no expectation of any return. And although at times that has left me exceptionally busy, I’ll forever be grateful for the opportunity to see the world through his compassionate, selfless eyes. I couldn’t ask for a greater hero to teach me how to be a better caretaker of the world around me.

  And although I had nothing in the pipeline at the time he made that offer, in the year that followed that’s exactly how it played out. Animals in need kept presenting themselves to me, and Bob backed me in each situation by getting on the radio, writing letters and giving my campaigns his seal of Irwin approval. From elephants in Sumatra to cassowaries in the rainforest, Bob’s name has been the catalyst in bringing a whole new level of awareness to these causes. That’s led us to exactly where we are today—on an ongoing wildlife road trip. And an unusual pair we make.

  14

  Fight for it

  After Steve died, I had two choices. I could vegetate somewhere for the rest of my days, or I could find some way to make sure that Steve’s conservation message wasn’t lost. It took me a long time, but I decided that it was still important for me to take the second option.

  I started to receive requests to assist people in raising awareness for various wildlife issues. I was hesitant about getting involved, because I didn’t see how I could do anything to help. But my hesitation disappeared altogether when I heard about wombats being buried alive. That really got me fired up. I had to do something about it.

  The southern hairy-nosed wombat, a protected species, was the target of a cruel cull in the Murraylands region of South Australia. Because they dig deep burrows and holes on farmers’ properties, they were considered a nuisance. And some farmers were taking matters into their own hands.

  Brigitte Stevens, a friend of mine, was running the Wombat Awareness Organisation down in South Australia. She let me know that they were in the middle of digging out, all by hand, up to ten wombats that had been buried alive in their burrows. When I heard about that, I couldn’t get in my truck fast enough, and I drove the two thousand kilometres down there to help. A few days earlier, farmers had driven bulldozers right through this area to block the tunnels intentionally, entombing the wombats underground. We worked like buggery to excavate their burrows, some of which were thirty metres long and three metres deep.

  Even though southern hairy-nosed wombats are considered a threatened native species, farmers could seek destruction permits for the animals from the state government. While I was down there, I was keen to talk to farmers to discuss the issue from their point of view. According to these farmers, the problem was that the wombats would eat crops as they were planted, they would dig holes that their machinery would fall into, and they broke and damaged fences. But with one farmer I visited, I was surprised to learn that of his thousands of acres of land, only one tiny little corner, just half an acre, had these wombat burrows. It was affecting his fencing there. ‘What do you estimate is the cost in dollar terms of the damage these wombats have done to your business?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, that half-acre they damaged is worth one hundred and fifty dollars per year,’ he said.

  ‘If I give you one hundred and fifty dollars a year, will you leave the wombats alone?’ I asked.

  But it was clear that he just wanted the wombats gone. He’d got it in his head that the wombats were destroying his property, and no matter how much I tried, he wouldn’t come round. I was grateful for his insight but I found it really difficult to see his point of view.

  I probably would have been less upset if the wombats had proven to be a really widespread issue and were then disposed of humanely. I still wouldn’t have agreed, but I probably could have accepted it. But in most cases they weren’t. The wombats were buried alive by heavy machinery, or farmers would throw poison or explosives down the entrance to their burrows. There were all sorts of horrible methods they used. That’s what upset me more than anything else. Wombats are amazing animals that play an important role in the environment and they feel pain just as much as you or me or anybody else.

  Those farmers maintained that wombats were destroying all of the country down there. But they’ve got to remember that the wombats were there long before they started to farm the country. They’d been digging holes and whatever else for thousands upon thousands of years. The next thing they know, along comes a farmer, who simply says, ‘Well, you can’t do that anymore. I want this bit of land and I’m going to clear it and plant my crops.’ Nobody consults with the wombats, of course. And that is exactly where the problem lies with every single animal out there that is threatened. We continue to make decisions without looking at it from the animal’s point of view—without considering that their very survival is at stake.

  For most of my time down there we were on our hands and knees, covered in dirt, in the scorching forty-degree summer heat, racing against the clock to find these wombats before they asphyxiated. We were out there all day, every day, until it got dark. By the end of my trip, I was exhausted. But when I went home, it weighed on my mind that these dedicated volunteers stayed out there, continuing to dig for wombats.

  We might not have solved the issue, but the story of my visit made headlines in newspapers right across Australia. There was suddenly a spotlight on the matter, and therefore some pressure on the government to do something about it. Brigitte told me afterwards that they had struggled to get that kind of attention for themselves.

  I returned home to Camp Chilli considerably stressed about it. Just a few days later, out slashing the grass in the paddock, I nearly drove my tractor into the dam because I was so distracted by thoughts of those poor wombats and the work of those dedicated people. This kind of treatment of animals, burying wombats alive, was an absolute blight on humanity. The more I thought about it, the tighter my chest became. When that pain suddenly worsened, I realised I had become more than a little anxious about the topic. But I put up with the agonising tightness in my chest for another four hours, working at my usual breakneck pace. After a while the pain had become unbearable, so I went back up to the house and admitted that to Judy.

  ‘I don’t feel all that good,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll go and lie down for a while.’

  Well, I hardly made it to the bed before collapsing. I was in the grip of a major heart attack. By the time the ambulance arrived, I had lost all coordination and the ability to speak. I was completely paralysed. They rushed me to the local hospital. I could see that there were a lot of medical staff fussing around, but things were hazy and I couldn’t talk or gesture at all. I saw them get a defibrillator ready to jumpstart me like I would jolt a flat battery in my truck with jumper leads.

  ‘It’s not good,’ I heard a doctor say. I thought to myself, Well, this looks like the end of the road for you, Bob.

  But I was calm. I just contemplated that it was finished for me, finally over and done with. Over the years, Judy had gifted me an understanding of spirituality where I could accept whatever came. But as it turned out, it wasn’t my time. They kept me going and sent me to Brisbane in an emergency Care-flight plane for specialist care at a bigger hospital.

  I woke up in the intensive care unit, once it was all over, with tubes and wires hanging out all over the place. I realised with surprise that I had survived. When the specialist came to see me, he explained just how lucky I had been. ‘Well, you’ve lost thirty-five per cent of the functionality of your heart. It’s dead and gone,’ he said.

  At least I had one, I thought, but I knew I hadn’t used my brain. In all those long hours I had chosen to ignore vital warning signs. Working through that kind of pain had been a really stupid thing to do. The male of the species are probably our own worst enemy in that way.

  ‘The good news is that you can survive with the remaining sixty-five per cent, but you’ve
got to be aware that if you overdo it, and get to this point again, you might not survive the next time,’ he warned.

  He was absolutely right. I had overdone it all these years. Physically, I’d always worked as hard as I could. It was my only way of coping with some of the bad things that had come my way. This was probably the very wake-up call I needed.

  But I don’t really recommend heart attacks. I’d prefer to be chomped by a three-metre crocodile, because you don’t feel the crocodile coming, you only feel it afterwards. A heart attack isn’t as stealthy. You feel every part of the ambush as it comes up on you. But regardless of how agonising the pain of that heart attack was, I’d take that any day compared to the pain of losing people you love.

  It took me a long time to realise that living like a hermit wasn’t doing me any good, and after that very close call, it was clear that I’d been given another shot at life. I thought I’d used up all my second chances already, so I felt incredibly lucky.

  When I looked in the mirror for my daily shave I saw a wrinkly old bugger who hadn’t looked after himself over the years. On the other hand I saw a guy who had been lucky to have the opportunities I had, and I still had more to do. I hadn’t really achieved anything at all since Steve had left us. When I started to think how Steve would have wanted me to react to not having him around, giving up wasn’t something I thought he’d be all that proud of. He would have told me to get my act together and given me a bloody hard kick up the bum. He had made the most of every second of every day. It was time to take a leaf out of his book.

  So I said to myself, ‘You’d better get back out there, Bob,’ and I did. There were lots of people out there like Brigitte who needed help fighting for the thing that was still most important to me—our wildlife.