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Originally Posted by Airehead I hope the TV producers will now cease to encourage the ridiculous excesses that have become popular - like the the bloke whose name I can't remember, who continually messes about with a snake while telling us how careful he has to be. |
In an effort to avoid debate in what is essentially WAB's own tribute page to Steve Irwin I've separated this quote for a new thread as some interesting issues have been raised with his death.
In an age where the public are increasingly encouraged to fear the natural world (Bird Flu, Jaws, Channel 5 documentaries like "When Turtles Attack!!") Steve Irwin's approach, was-to me-a breath of fresh air. The 'ridiculous excesses' he and others (such as Austin Stevens-the bloke referred to above) have been accused of are as nothing compared to the methods employed by proffessional animal 'catchers' and certain wildlife tourist areas.
Methods for catching wild animals for zoos & private collections have little changed since Gerald Durrel described leaving a sloth in the middle of the floor to crawl around in distress, or David Attenborough wrestled an Anteater into a canvas sack, in fact they are probably worse now-especially if you include the battery-farm style transportation in, e.g. parrots.
Anyone appalled at the stress caused by handling must therefore be equally appalled at the stream of visitors driving terns to defensive distraction on the Farne Islands, or chasing wildlife across the African plains in a tourist jeep (or Big Cat Diary camera truck).
Irwin's enthusiastic style has also come in for critiscism in some places (for example Germaine Greer in today's Guardian). Which brings me round to the thread title. Consider this: which is more likely to get a youngster out from in front of the Playstation and interested in the world around them; Steve Irwin jumping into a tree to catch a Green Mamba, or Cwis Packham po-facedly telling you that if you stay
really still for a few hours you might get a photo?
As a kid me & a mate went out into the countryside regularly to catch Common Lizards (sadly a real rarity in the same haunts now-only 15-20 years later) by hand, handled spiders, slugs and no-end of other creepy-crawlies. (We didn't have anyone like Steve to look up to, but I'm sure we'd have been shouting Crikey!, or Strewth, what a Beaut, if he had been around then). Imagine, then, my appalled surprise when the directive came down from above that for our National Insect Week bug hunt we were instructed to tell the kids
not to touch anything of course we ignored this directive and were repeatedly treated to the sight of, initially reluctant, young boys & girls picking things up in order to get a closer look & fully appreciate the beauty of their fellow inhabitants of the planet.
TV presenters like Steve Irwin and, to an extent, Bill Oddie show an enthusiasm & ebulliance which is now rare on television of any kind and are frequently vilified for it-why is this? Is it considered too gauche for today's media & celebrity-obssessed, mass-produced meat eating, aspirational, i-pod wearing, nature fearing 'civilisation'?
The natural world is in dire straits, in the middle of a humankind-inspired extinction event, climate change has passed the point of no return and our world leaders respond by obfuscating about restraint of trade and economic growth (if they could get away with sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting lalalalalalalala I'm sure they could). With the death of Steve Irwin we have lost one of the foremost-and listened to-voices in the conservation movement (one need only see how John Howard, Aussie PM, reacted to realise this) anyone who loves nature in any form should be mourning.