HECTIC scenes enveloped the home of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin yesterday as hundreds of Australians paid tribute to the extroverted conservationist who was known to a worldwide television audience of more than 500 million people.
Traffic lined roads leading to the 44-year-old’s Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast as a stream of mourners and well-wishers filed past, decorating the entrance to the nature park with hundreds of bouquets. They also scrawled tributes across several khaki shirts, Irwin’s trademark outfit, that had been draped over a makeshift stand by zoo workers.
As Australians and millions of fans around the world tried to come to grips with the freakish death of the adventurer, police said they had received video footage of the incident in which Irwin was fatally stabbed by the barb of a large stingray while swimming in less than two metres of water on Batt Reef, off Port Douglas, on Monday.
The footage apparently shows Irwin pulling the barb from his chest before losing consciousness. His long-time friend and business manager John Stainton described the scenes as shocking. “It’s a very hard thing to watch because you’re actually witnessing somebody die … and it’s terrible.”
Mr Stainton, a producer and director of Irwin’s television shows that first screened on the Animal Planet cable TV channel, said the footage “shows that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here (in the chest), and he pulled it out and the next minute he’s gone. That was it. The cameraman had to shut down.”
Police ruled out the possibility that Irwin had aggravated the ray during filming for a TV documentary. “There is no evidence that Mr Irwin was intimidating or threatening the stingray,” Queensland Police superintendent Michael Keating said. “My advice is that he was observing the stingray.”
Queensland’s coroner is yet to indicate whether he will hold an inquiry into Irwin’s death.
Late yesterday, Irwin’s body was returned to the Sunshine Coast from Cairns. But the showman and wildlife campaigner’s family, wife Terri and children Bindi, 8, and Bob, nearly three, remained out of the spotlight.
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