Steve & Me

by Terri Irwin

  When Steve came in and called the number the police gave, the governor-general’s secretary answered. She was quite terse and to the point. She indicated that we would be investigated by Children’s Services.

  “I don’t understand why you are calling me at ten o’clock on a Friday night to tell me that,” Steve said. I could hear the sharp edge in the woman’s voice even though Steve held the phone.

  “Be very careful, Mr. Irwin,” she said. “We have the capacity to take your children.”

  I will never forget what that woman said or the way in which she said it. Could the social workers come and take our children away? Children who were so desperately loved, taken care of, and cherished?

  This was a media beat-up at its very worst. All those officials reacting to what the media labeled “The Baby Bob Incident” failed to understand the Irwin family. This is what we did—teach our children about wildlife, from a very early age. It wasn’t unnatural and it wasn’t a stunt. It was, on the contrary, an old and valued family tradition, and one that I embraced wholeheartedly.

  It was who we were. To have the press fasten on the practice as irresponsible made us feel that our very ability as parents was being attacked. It didn’t make any sense.

  This is why Steve never publicly apologized. For him to say “I’m sorry” would mean that he was sorry that Bob and Lyn raised him the way they did, and that was simply impossible. The best he could do was to sincerely apologize if he had worried anyone. The reality was that he would have been remiss as a parent if he didn’t teach his kids how to coexist with wildlife. After all, his kids didn’t just have busy roads and hot stoves to contend with. They literally had to learn how to live with crocodiles and venomous snakes in their backyard.

  Through it all, the plight of the Tibetan nuns was completely and totally ignored. The world media had not a word to spare about a dry well that hundreds of people depended on. For months, any time Steve encountered the press, Tibetan nuns were about the furthest thing from the reporter’s mind. The questions would always be the same: “Hey, Stevo, what about the Baby Bob Incident?”

  “If I could relive Friday, mate, I’d go surfing,” Steve said on a hugely publicized national television appearance in the United States. “I can’t go back to Friday, but you know what, mate? Don’t think for one second I would ever endanger my children, mate, because they’re the most important thing in my life, just like I was with my mum and dad.”

  Steve and I struggled to get back to a point where we felt normal again. Sponsors spoke about terminating contracts. Members of our own documentary crew sought to distance themselves from us, and our relationship with Discovery was on shaky ground.

  But gradually we were able to tune out the static and hear what people were saying. Not the press, but the people. We read the e-mails that had been pouring in, as well as faxes, letters, and phone messages. Real people helped to get us back on track. Their kids were growing up with them on cattle ranches and could already drive tractors, or lived on horse farms and helped handle skittish stallions. Other children were learning to be gymnasts, a sport which was physically rigorous and held out the chance of injury. The parents had sent us messages of support.

  “Don’t feel bad, Steve,” wrote one eleven-year-old from Sydney. “It’s not the wildlife that’s dangerous.” A mother wrote us, “I have a new little baby, and if you want to take him in on the croc show it is okay with me.”

  So many parents employed the same phrase: “I’d trust my kids with Steve any day.”

  I knew Steve was starting to cope when he proposed one of his most ambitious documentaries with John. They would journey literally to the end of the earth, to Antarctica, and document conditions for wildlife there. Steve knew that Antarctica functioned as a canary in a coal mine—an early-warning mechanism for environmental problems with the earth as a whole.

  It was summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and that’s the only practical time to go to Antarctica, but the continent was still no place for small children. I felt torn about being separated at such a tumultuous time, but the doco Icebreaker had been planned for a long time. Steve went south with John Stainton and a camera crew. I went to Florida and Disney World with the rest of my family: Robert and Bindi.

  As he had with the fauna of the Galapagos Islands, Steve discovered that the Antarctic wildlife had little fear of humans. There were no hunting parties out terrorizing the wildlife, so they didn’t perceive people as a threat. The penguins were among the friendliest. In fact, he found if he mimicked their actions, they would often repeat them in response. Steve slid on his belly down the slopes of ice, and the penguins did the same.

  He maintained a respectful distance, but often the penguins came to him. Steve was really interested in learning more about penguins’ main predator, leopard seals. The seals had a fierce reputation. One report detailed the recent fatal encounter of a researcher from New Zealand with a leopard seal. But after visiting Antarctica, Steve came away with a different perception.

  It turned out that the researcher was snorkeling at the time, and the seal actually seemed to be playing with her. The leopard seal grabbed her flipper and pulled her under the water. Then it let her go, and she swam to the surface. But the seal pulled her down again and again, like it was a game. Finally she was unable to hold her breath long enough.

  The facts didn’t make the event any less tragic, but it did put a new perspective on human interaction with leopard seals. Steve watched the leopard seals emerge from the holes in the ice.

  “They are like great big caterpillars,” he told me. As with crocs, they could be dangerous in the water, or lunging out from the water’s edge. But once the seals were out of the water, they resembled gigantic inchworms coming at you. They were really no threat as far as chasing a human down.

  The best approach to a leopard seal was to give it a wide berth. Steve was able to talk about leopard seal behavior while sitting on the ice with one nearby. The seal didn’t fling itself at Steve. In fact, it listened as Steve told its story, then slipped back into the water.

  Antarctica had definite rules about approaching wildlife. Penguins, for example, had a specific distance restriction, meaning all humans had to stay at least that distance away—unless the penguin approached them. That was the rule.

  The reality was a little different. Researchers had to proceed through great numbers of the birds just to walk to the dunny. Tourist boats, which came to Antarctica in large numbers, plowed through penguins when approaching ports, actually killing them in droves.

  Steve felt determined to focus on the positive aspects of his experience. Humpback whales came up to the side of the boat, lifting their huge heads out of the water, having a look around. There was no need to go searching for them—the natural curiosity of the humpbacks made them come to you. Steve donned his dry suit to do some filming in the water. The whales approached. Because Steve’s dry suit had a small leak in it, he climbed up on a growler—a small iceberg—and was able to hang on to complete the filming.

  The resulting footage represented what Steve was all about. He was able to bring his experience with these beautiful whales into people’s living rooms. This is why he did what he did—to get wildlife into our hearts.

  The waters of Antarctica are officially deemed protected by international treaty. Every year, however, Japanese fleets come in to conduct “research” on whales, under the auspices of JARPA (Japanese Whale Research Program in Antarctica). It’s curious research: The boatmen kill whales, take the meat back to Japan, and put it on the market. No viable research information on whales ever results.

  The Japanese government seems to have made whale killing a point of national pride. The traffic in whale meat is not even a lucrative business, only about forty million dollars a year worldwide. In fact, most Japanese people are against whaling and would rather not even eat whale meat. But the killing continues, even though the Japanese are no longer dependent on whales for food, as they were during W
orld War II.

  As a wildlife warrior, Steve fought against age-old practices that were destroying entire species. He felt it was time to focus on the nonconsumptive use of wildlife. Poachers were still hunting tigers for their bones, and bears for their gallbladders, all for traditional medicines that have been far surpassed by modern pharmaceuticals.

  It should be simple. We should be able to take an aspirin instead of powdered rhino horn, make whaling something that we read about in history books, and end our appetite for shark-fin soup, which is causing one of the world’s most ancient and important species to vanish from the oceans.

  Until the day comes when the senseless killing ends, we will all have to fight like wildlife warriors to protect our precious planet.

  Steve came back from his Antarctica trip with renewed determination. In his last documentary, Steve showed how penguins actually play. He tried to demystify the fierce reputation of the leopard seal. He talked about how humpback whales have a family structure similar to ours, that they are mammals, they love their children, and they communicate.

  But in the wake of the Baby Bob incident, reporters seemed to be lying in wait for Steve. This time he was attacked for filming with the wildlife of Antarctica. Commentators characterized Steve sliding down the slippery slopes with penguins as “interfering.” Sitting near a leopard seal to demonstrate that they aren’t horrible monsters was labeled as “displacing wildlife.” Most ludicrous of all, when Steve sat on the growler, a report claimed he was riding a whale.

  Australian authorities launched an official investigation. Laws regulated procedures of filming Antarctic wildlife, and the charges, if proven, included potential jail time. Just months after being devastated by claims that he wasn’t a good father, Steve faced charges that he was a wildlife harasser, instead of a wildlife warrior. We found ourselves spending money on lawyers that should have been going to wildlife conservation.

  The controversy highlighted the way wildlife is prioritized. Steve and I believed that in the modern age, wildlife competes for headlines with politics and sports. Watching wildlife on the long lens (“See that little dot on the center of that iceberg?”) just won’t work anymore. It won’t put wildlife into people’s hearts or give them a priority in the press, which is where they have to be to have any chance of survival.

  Steve had such genuine love for wildlife and was so skilled and gifted, he was able to share the animals’ beauty without using restraining devices. For example, whales spend a tenth of their lives at the surface of the ocean. Whale watching doesn’t harm whales. But it is highly effective in getting people to take whales into their hearts.

  More than that, Steve wanted everyone watching to feel like they were sharing the experience and not just viewing it. “I want you in there with me, mate,” Steve told his audiences. “I’m taking you right in there with me.” He wanted everyone to come with him on his journey of discovery and to connect with wildlife as he did.

  In the end, the investigation determined that Steve had done nothing wrong on the Antarctic documentary trip. Once again, the thoughts and prayers of ordinary people around the world who believed in Steve sustained us. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had thrown it all in. “I’m closing the gates,” he could have said. “I’m going to quit struggling.” But he wasn’t willing to give up or give in.

  Steve kept fighting, but not since he’d lost his mother had I seen him so low. He had taken two hits in quick succession: first Baby Bob, then the Antarctica allegations.

  “Crocodiles are easy,” Steve said. “They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.”

  Steve was a warrior in every sense of the word, but battling wildlife perpetrators just wasn’t the same as old-fashioned combat. Because Steve’s knees continued to deteriorate, his surfing ability was severely compromised. Instead of giving up in despair, Steve sought another outlet for all his pent-up energy.

  Through our head of security, Dan Higgins, Steve discovered mixed martial arts (or MMA) fighting. Steve was a natural at sparring. His build was unbelievable, like a gorilla’s, with his thick chest, long arms, and outrageous strength for hugging things (like crocs). Once he grabbed hold of something, there was no getting away. He had a punch equivalent to the kick of a Clydesdale, he could just about lift somebody off the ground with an uppercut, and he took to grappling as a wonderful release. Steve never did anything by halves.

  I remember one time the guys were telling him that a good body shot could really wind someone. Steve suddenly said, “No one’s given me a good body shot. Try to drop me with a good one so I know what it feels like.” Steve opened up his arms and Dan just pile drove him. Steve said, in between gasps, “Thanks, mate. That was great, I get your point.”

  I would join in and spar or work the pads, or roll around until I was absolutely exhausted. Steve would go until he threw up. I’ve never seen anything like it. Some MMA athletes are able to seek that dark place, that point of total exhaustion—they can see it, stare at it, and sometimes get past it. Steve ran to it every day. He wasn’t afraid of it. He tried to get himself to that point of exhaustion so that maybe the next day he could get a little bit further.

  Soon we were recruiting the crew, anyone who had any experience grappling. Guys from the tiger department or construction were lining up to have a go, and Steve would go through the blokes one after another, grappling away. And all the while I loved it too.

  Here was something else that Steve and I could do together, and he was hilarious. Sometimes he would be cooking dinner, and I’d come into the kitchen and pat him on the bum with a flirtatious look. The next thing I knew he had me in underhooks and I was on the floor. We’d be rolling around, laughing, trying to grapple each other. It’s like the old adage when you’re watching a wildlife documentary: Are they fighting or mating?

  It seems odd that this no-holds-barred fighting really brought us closer, but we had so much fun with it. Steve finally built his own dojo on a raised concrete pad with a cage, shade cloth, fans, mats, bags, and all that great gear. Six days a week, he would start grappling at daylight, as soon as the guys would get into work. He had his own set of techniques and was a great brawler in his own right, having stood up for himself in some of the roughest, toughest, most remote outback areas.

  Steve wasn’t intimidated by anyone. Dan Higgins brought a bunch of guys over from the States, including Keith Jardine and other pros, and Steve couldn’t wait to tear into them. He held his own against some of the best MMA fighters in the world. I always thought that if he’d wanted to be a fighter as a profession, he would have been dangerous. All the guys heartily agreed.

  Steve was off for another trip—this time, he was headed for Washington, D.C., to address the Discovery Channel’s four-thousand-person staff as part of the cable giant’s twenty-year birthday party. He was happy to go over, since it was a big deal for Discovery and Steve was very proud to be asked to speak to their team. But it was difficult for him to be away.

  It seemed that now, more than ever, he relished having his little family unit. Now that Robert was getting bigger, Steve was enjoying spending time with both the kids and seemed much more appreciative of how comfortable our relationship had become. I was pleasantly surprised when the phone rang and it was Steve, calling all the way from Washington, D.C.

  He sounded concerned. “Mate, when I hugged you good-bye at the airport, it felt like there was something wrong.”

  I was always impressed with the way Steve could tune in to my feelings. “The longer we’re together, the more I worry when we’re apart,” I confessed.

  “We just have to make every day, every minute we’re together count,” Steve replied.

  “I know,” I told him. “I just miss you so much.”

  “Don’t worry, babe,” he said. “I’ll be home in a couple days. Big cities just aren’t my cup of tea.”

  When he did come home, we had new Sumatran tiger cubs to play with at the
zoo, and new bush adventures to embark upon. Professor Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland mounted a crocodile research partnership with Steve. The idea was to fasten transmitters and data loggers on crocs to record their activity in their natural environment. But in order to place the transmitters, you had to catch the crocs first, and that’s where Steve’s expertise came in.

  Steve never felt more content than when he was with his family in the bush. “There’s nothing more valuable than human life, and this research will help protect both crocs and people,” he told us. The bush was where Steve felt most at home. It was where he was at his best. On that one trip, he caught thirty-three crocs in fourteen days.

  He wanted to do more. “I’d really like to have the capability of doing research on the ocean as well as in the rivers,” he told me. “I could do so much more for crocodiles and sharks if I had a purpose-built research vessel.”

  I could see where he was heading. I was not a big fan of boats.

  “I’m going to contact a company in Western Australia, in Perth,” he said. “I’m going to work on a custom-built research vessel.”

  As the wheels turned in his mind, he became more and more excited. “The sky’s the limit, mate,” he said. “We could help tiger sharks and learn why crocs go out to sea. There is no reason why we couldn’t help whales, too.”

  “Tell me how we can help whales,” I said, expecting to hear about a research project that he and Craig had in mind.

  “It will be great,” he said. “We’ll build a boat with an ice-breaking hull. We’ll weld a can opener to the front, and join Sea Shepherd in Antarctica to stop those whaling boats in their tracks.”

  When we got back from our first trip to Cape York Peninsula with Craig Franklin, Steve immediately began drawing up plans for his boat. He wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. As he envisioned it, the boat would be somewhere between a hard-core scientific research vessel and a luxury cruiser.