{"id":1557,"date":"2006-09-04T22:46:53","date_gmt":"2006-09-05T03:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2006-09-05T00:36:01","modified_gmt":"2006-09-05T05:36:01","slug":"crocodile-hunter-died-doing-what-he-loved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1557","title":{"rendered":"Crocodile Hunter Died ‘Doing What He Loved’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crikey<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Tributes from around the world are flowing in for Steve Irwin, the enthusiastic Australian “Crocodile Hunter” who enthralled audiences around the world with his wildlife adventures.<\/p>\n

Irwin died Monday morning after being attacked by a stingray while shooting a TV program off Australia’s north coast.<\/p>\n

Irwin’s manager and friend John Stainton said Irwin died doing what he loved — filming life in the wild.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Irwin was snorkeling at Batt Reef, a part of the Great Barrier Reef offshore from the town of Port Douglas, when the incident happened.<\/p>\n

“He came over the top of a stingray that was buried in the sand, and the barb came up and hit him in the chest,” Stainton said.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Irwin was in the area to film pieces for a show called “The Ocean’s Deadliest” with Philippe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques, according to Stainton.<\/p>\n

But weather had prevented the crew from doing work for that program, Stainton said, so Irwin decided to do some softer features for a new children’s TV show he was doing with his daughter, Bindi.<\/p>\n

Wildlife documentary maker Ben Cropp, citing a colleague who saw footage of the attack, told Time.com that Irwin had accidentally boxed the stingray in. “It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest,” said Cropp. “It’s a defensive thing. It’s like being stabbed with a dirty dagger.”<\/p>\n

Irwin was pulled from the water by a cameraman and boat crewman. He died as he was being rushed to a nearby island for emergency treatment. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

“The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet,” Stainton told reporters in Cairns, according to The Associated Press. “He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, ‘Crocs Rule!’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a freakish way for such a legendary figure to die.<\/p>\n

The Animal Planet<\/a> network has issued a statement<\/a> and set up a forum for condolences<\/a> to the Irwin family. Currently, the forum is unreachable because of high traffic.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Mr. Irwin had two blessings in his life — doing what he was absolutely passionate about and touching the lives of others. His body of work, of which I’m sure we’ll see plenty in the upcoming days, stands as witness for the former; for the latter, I’d like to submit this very personal remembrance<\/a> from Jack M., blogging in Ace<\/a>‘s digs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crikey! Tributes from around the world are flowing in for Steve Irwin, the enthusiastic Australian “Crocodile Hunter” who enthralled audiences around the world with his wildlife adventures. Irwin died Monday morning after being attacked by a stingray while shooting a TV program off Australia’s north coast. Irwin’s manager and friend John Stainton said Irwin died […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}