by Terri Irwin
“Grab her back legs!” he called to me.
I grabbed the alligator’s back leg and tail, trying to slow her down. Steve swung to the side to try to thwart her moving away. His knee twisted, and then I heard it pop. That seemingly minor event contributed to more serious knee problems that would plague Steve unendingly. I felt terrible. If I had done a better job at holding the gator, he might not have wrenched his knee.
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” he told me that night. He refused to let me help ice it down. He could tell I thought it was my fault. “My knee’s been giving me curry since high school.”
There never seemed to be a dull moment. Steve came running into the house one morning before the zoo opened. “Throw on your robe, quick,” he said. I followed Steve to the alligator enclosure and couldn’t believe my eyes. Two of our adult females, known as the “Fang Sisters,” had decided to battle over the same nesting spot in their enclosure. They were locked down, their teeth tearing through each other’s skulls. Blood pooled on both their heads. Neither sister would let go for anything.
“Get in!” Steve shouted. “We’ve got to get them apart.” He told me to jump one while he jumped the other. Once we had them more or less secured, he began the agonizing process of prying their jaws apart.
Mud and blood splattered over both of us. I watched Steve struggle with the dueling alligators, locked in mortal combat. They seemed intent on killing each other, and he was intent on saving them both. All at once the girls let go, but then immediately swung back into the fight. It took both of us, with all our strength, to hold them apart.
We sat there for some time in the mud, each holding a blood-soaked alligator. We looked at each other, hanging on for grim death, knowing that if either of us let go, it would happen all over again. It was early in the morning and no one else was at the zoo. Steve had hold of one nine-foot alligator. I had the other. It seemed like an eternity that we sat there, in a stalemate.
I didn’t think I could hold on much longer. Finally Steve got his arm under his alligator and swung her around. He jumped up, grabbed a fence panel, and stuck that between the two alligators to manipulate them apart. Brandishing the panel like a bullfighter’s red cape, Steve kept the two alligators separated while I ran to get building materials so he could improvise a barrier. Bull alligators get along much better than the females. The females tend to fight for nesting spaces, whereas the guys simply coexist. There was no way the Fang Sisters were ever going to share nesting space.
I slowly became familiar with the personalities of all the zoo’s crocodilians. They were as individual as people. I got to know them intimately during nesting season. Saltwater crocodiles deposit around sixty eggs a season. If you leave them all in the nest, some will break, and the rotten-egg smell becomes overpowering—so one of the tasks of the zoo crew was to remove the eggs.
Mary, our oldest female croc, was easy to work with because she would tear after anyone who approached, leaving her nest unprotected. Cookie was another matter. She sat directly on top of her nest and would not leave. Steve had to get in close in order to coax her away. Whenever she came off the nest to make a flying lunge at Steve, my job was to sneak in and madly grab as many eggs as I could. On my first raid, I took sixty-six eggs out of Cookie’s nest.
We had to move a lot of smaller crocodiles from one enclosure to another as they were growing. The bigger crocs would become dominant over the smaller ones, and it made everything difficult, including feeding time. One day we invited John to bring his crew and film a move with some of the smaller salties. They were only about three feet long, but were still almost more than I could handle, with snapping, biting jaws and thrashing, spinning bodies. In the end, we were all covered from head to toe with mud, laughing.
The zoo crocs were stars. Mary got to appear in Endless Summer 2, the sequel to the legendary 1960s surfing travelogue. Since he was a boy, Steve was always a mad keen surfer. In the movie, Steve played—what else?—a surfer carrying his board past a billabong with a crocodile in it.
Mary played her part perfectly. The filmmakers set up in her enclosure. She sat showing off her lumpy, bumpy head, looking absolutely ferocious. Steve walked nonchalantly past, carrying a surfboard, his legs filmed dramatically close to Mary and her big teeth.
The thousand dollars Steve’s legs earned for his cameo helped fund a wedge-tailed eagle enclosure at the zoo, a huge space with logs suspended from the roof for easy perching. As usual, Steve built it all himself. The enclosure provided a home for two injured eagles, and it was a great educational exhibit as well. We were keeping our promise to put every penny the Croc Hunter earned right back into conservation.
Around the time Steve finished the eagle enclosure, we got our first blast of bad press. An Australian program ran an “exposé” on the zoo, on our documentaries, and on Steve. There it was, on national television for all of Australia to see. Steve’s wildlife work wasn’t real. He was a magician, and what people saw on screen was sleight of hand.
The program cut deep for Steve, who had spent his whole life cultivating relationships with wild animals and wanted to share his passion with the world. It really hurt his feelings, and I suffered to see him suffer. The incident was a lesson in the way the world worked. The fact that people actually made up stuff for the show got to me. In the end, Steve handled it better than I did. I experienced bad dreams and felt a little sick. I never minded if people said bad things about me. I knew who I was and what I stood for. But to hear someone say something bad about Steve really cut me to the core.
Luckily, better days were just around the corner.
Shasta was barking and howling, overjoyed to see me. After unending paperwork and nine months of quarantine, she was finally arriving in Brisbane. I met her at the airport. When I first spotted her, she was growling at the air-freight personnel. As soon as she saw me, her entire expression changed. It was a magic moment.
Even though the heat clobbered her at first, Shasta took to her new home well. She had a full two acres of yard with plenty of shade, and she could come into the house whenever she wanted. It was like having a little piece of home with me again.
At that point in time, between Steve and myself, I was the cash-rich one. I had around $120,000 in the bank after selling my Oregon house and my business, Westates Flagman. We both wanted to expand the zoo and were looking at adjacent properties. A two-acre tract was up for sale, but the owners were asking $60,000 for it.
If we purchased the land, the zoo would be enlarged from four acres to six. At the time, it seemed like an enormous step to take. We argued back and forth. We talked, dreamed, and planned. Steve always seemed to worry about the future.
“If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll take care of the zoo.”
“Of course I will,” I said. “That’s easy to promise, but nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry.”
“Will you still love me if a croc grabs me and I lose an arm or a leg?”
“Yes, of course I would still love you,” I said.
But there were many evenings when he would run through improbable scenarios, just checking to see how I really felt. One night he looked particularly concerned, his brow furrowed.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Tell me why you married me.”
I laughed. “Because you’re hot in the cot.”
That broke the tension, and he laughed too. We both relaxed a little bit. But he would sometimes wonder if I’d married him just because I loved him, or if it was because he was a bit of Tarzan and Croc Dundee and Indiana Jones all rolled into one.
“I’m in love with Steve Irwin,” I assured him, “and part of the reason I love you is because you are such a staunch advocate for wildlife. Your empathy and compassion for all animals is part of it too. But most of all, I know that destiny brought us together.”
Steve continued our serious discussion, and he spoke of his mortality. He was convinced that he would never reach forty. Tha
t’s why he was in such a hurry all the time, to get as much done as he could. He didn’t feel sad about it. He only felt the motivation to make a difference before he was gone.
“I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “I’m only afraid of dying. I don’t want to get sick and dwindle. I love working hard and playing hard and living hard, and making every moment count.”
I learned so much from Steve. He helped me reevaluate my own purpose, my own life. What would happen if I didn’t make it to forty? What legacy would I leave?
That evening he was unusually contemplative. “None of our petty problems really matter,” he said.
I agreed. “In a hundred years, what difference is it going to make, worrying about this two acres of land? We need to focus on the real change that will make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren.”
Steve gave me a strange look. Children? We had never discussed having children much, because we were flat strapped. The thought of filming more documentaries, running the zoo, and raising a family was just too daunting. But that evening we did agree on one thing: We would spend some of my savings and make the leap to enlarge the zoo. We were both so happy with our decision.
“We’re lucky that we met before I became the Crocodile Hunter,” he said.
I knew what he was talking about. It made things a lot easier, a lot more clear-cut. I had fallen in love with Steve Irwin, not the guy on TV.
“I don’t know how they do it,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“People in the limelight,” he said. “How do they tell who’s in it for them and who’s just after their celebrity? It puts a new slant on everything. Not for us, though,” he added.
“Too right,” I agreed.
Around that time, Steve managed to secure a piece of posterity in a way he never expected. While shooting a film called Hidden River, he and I were rowing past the camera to get a particular shot. Steve suddenly leaped to his feet and flung himself out of the boat.
He vanished beneath the water. By this time I was used to Steve bolting off for no apparent reason. I turned around to look for him, and after what seemed like a great deal of time had passed, he surfaced with something. It was big and round, like a dinner plate.
“What have you got?”
He hoisted a large, pale turtle to the surface and hauled it into the boat. It had a light-colored head, an almost pink nose, and beautiful, delicate coloring. Its watery, saucer-shaped eyes craned up and looked at Steve. Now you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?
“Crikey, I’ve only ever seen this species once before, with my dad,” Steve marveled. As it turned out, he had discovered a new species of turtle right there in the middle of the river. We photographed his find, filmed it, measured it, and weighed it.
The Queensland Museum verified that it was an undescribed species that would be called Irwin’s turtle—Elseya irwini, forever named after Steve.
Back at the zoo, now that we had decided to buy the additional two acres, Steve was determined to open the whole of the original four acres to the public. The Crocodile Environmental Park had always been a separate part of the zoo, with separate admission, open only for croc shows. But now, as the crowds increased as a result of our documentaries, he wanted to showcase the crocs.
Steve planned the grand opening of the Crocodile Environmental Park for the Christmas school holidays. That meant building extra walkways, ramps, and grandstands for visibility, and erecting double fences all around the enclosures so people couldn’t come in close proximity to the crocodiles. It was a tremendous amount of work.
Steve spent the spring feverishly concreting crocodile ponds. He shifted the animals around so that each croc was in a good position for viewing. He worked tirelessly. The weather didn’t cooperate, and the wet season came early that year. Steve started in September and worked straight through to Christmas, nearly sixteen straight weeks of backbreaking labor.
His focus was always on the animals he loved. I knew that he didn’t want people showing up at the zoo just to see him, the Crocodile Hunter. He wanted people to come to see his crocs. That’s what Steve was all about. Working so hard was his way of making sure that visitors would have the best opportunity to love crocodiles like he did.
Steve ended up with terrible concrete burns on his arms and hands. His wrist had to be splinted. Through it all he never complained. We made it in time and on schedule. We opened for Christmas and the Australian school holidays, and the new layout was a huge success. The zoo visitors streamed in, and everyone was thrilled to see crocs just like they would in the wild. They left the zoo with a new appreciation for Steve’s favorite animal.
Soon afterward, an effort to introduce the public to another Australian icon had us embarking on an epic journey.
Chapter Nine
“I Know What We Have to Do”
Steve had completed the zoo expansions to cope with the greater influx of visitors. After the school holidays, we were immediately off on a new, ambitious documentary expedition. We would trace the whole of Australia’s legendary dingo fence, constructed across southeastern sheep country to keep out the predatory dingoes. Originally nearly five thousand miles long and almost four times the length of the Great Wall of China, now only about three thousand miles remained—but it was still the longest man-made structure in the world.
Steve was curious to see how the fence worked. No one was certain how effective it was. Of course, there were dingoes all over sheep country, so it wasn’t clear whether the fence was really working or if dingo numbers were lowered by graziers with guns and poison bait.
Good or bad, the fence was a true Australian phenomenon. We were determined to document it as thoroughly as possible, tracing its course through some of the most remote outback on earth. Simply from a logistical point of view, the project would be a tremendous undertaking. Taking a camera crew on such a journey would be a huge responsibility for Steve—just the kind of challenge he loved.
Steve and I were looking forward to filming again with John Stainton. As our producer and director, John was very clever to let Steve do what he did best, and then edit the footage to put the final touches on the whole adventure. We worked together well and were all becoming fast friends.
John always struck me as an unlikely wildlife warrior. In all the years we worked together, I never saw him wrangle any wildlife, not even a gecko. He also managed to stay impossibly clean in spite of the adverse conditions we often found ourselves in. To his credit, he could keep up with Steve no matter how many flies, how much heat or other hardships he had to endure in the bush. But on a trip like this, there was no better filmmaker in the world.
Sui came with us, but Shasta stayed home in the shade. This trip would be just too action-packed for my aging dog. Sui, on the other hand, would have a great time, as she was used to going bush—it was like her second home. The only danger would be the 1080 poison baits that were set for the dingoes.
We started where the northern end of the fence began, in Queensland. We met the man in charge of a 1,500-mile northern section of the fence. He had a crew of twenty-three men working under him, just to keep the fence repaired and intact. We listened as he and his wife told us their wildlife stories. I wasn’t sure why, but they seemed to really hate emus. I think it was because a panicked, running emu could put a hole right through the fence.
“You know, an emu is supposed to be able to run sixty kilometers per hour,” he said, relishing his story. “But if I run my truck right up their bum, they will actually reach about sixty-eight kilometers an hour. It’s funny how they look back over their shoulder just before they get run over.”
They laughed long and loud until they realized that none of us were laughing with them. His wife must have thought we didn’t get the joke, because she tried to explain it further. “Our oldest child, he always begs his dad,” she told us, “‘Run down an emu, Dad, run down an emu!’”
While we drove the fence line
afterward, it was obvious that Steve was trying to get back to the job at hand and move on from the awkward conversation. Suddenly he had a premonition. He turned to me. “Something’s going to happen,” he said.
Just ahead of us, a koala ran through a paddock over open ground. Steve immediately jumped out of the truck.
“Get John and catch up!” Steve yelled.
I scrambled into the driver’s seat, bouncing like hell over the muddy track, rounding up John and the crew to come film Steve’s encounter with the koala.
“How did you know something was going to happen?” I asked Steve, once we’d filmed the koala and gotten it safely to a nearby tree. “How did you sense it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, mate, it’s the strangest thing.” Were Steve’s bush instincts simply more finely honed than anyone else’s? I didn’t think it was that simple. He seemed to be able to tune into some sixth sense with wildlife. After years in the bush, he had refined his gift into an uncanny ability.
The dingo fence is not well known by all Australians. That’s because you can’t just drive down the fence line as if you’re visiting a tourist attraction. The fence runs through private property, so permission from the landowner—and in some cases a permit—is required, primarily to protect the fence from vandals. Also, some of the areas along the fence line are incredibly remote. It’s not the place for inexperienced travelers.
As we passed through the tiny community of Thargaminda, I took the rare opportunity to indulge in a hot shower at the police station, while Steve checked on road conditions. Some of the local children noticed us in town, and we were invited to make an appearance at their school. We met all fifty-one students.
“You are so lucky to have such beautiful snakes out here,” Steve said. He explained how to live safely with the venomous snakes in the region, and even demonstrated first aid for snakebites. The kids were hanging on his every word.
