Couldn't agree more regarding the death of Mr Irwin. Your heart goes out to his wife and two young kids. I just can't imagine doing this dangerous stuff when you have kids. It is a very selfish thing to do. Do you want your kids to grow up with a daddy?? Sure, we could all die from a freak accident... but when you are out harassing deadly snakes, crocodiles, sharks and other animals you are playing with fire. I wish his wife and kids the best. I hope they can carry on his love of wildlife and the environment but I do hope they don't partake in the same antics that their father did. vr, Xei.

i would have to disagree with the death of steve irwin as 'no tears' are needed to be shed.

the comparison to dale earnhardt's death is not a viable comparison in my opinion. to me, dale earnhardt contributed zero to improving conditions here on good ol' mother earth. he was really good at driving in a oval (something that a lot of people seem to be fascinated with).

while irwin did make a ton of money from doing his show and stuff...he also was a great conservationist. it's comparing apple to oranges with earnhardt.

in addition, while his job is/was dangerous...i feel that there are A LOT of jobs out there that are profoundly dangerous...police officer, fireman, lumberjack, alaskan king crab fisherman, los angeles school teacher!!! ;) etc. very, very dangerous jobs in which i am sure a lot (if not most of them) have a wife and kids.

steve irwin knew the risks everyday that what he did carried huge risks!
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27268208.shtml

he was an uncanny animal wrangler, entertainer and conservationist. i have never met the man, his family or even claim to know a lot about him...but if he is anything like the linked article interview...i am going to venture and opinionate that the last thing he would have wanted the public to do was to make a big deal about him.

Earnhardt to Irwin is probably apples to oranges but so is Deadly animal aggravator to police officer, fireman, lumberjack etc... If you are talking about a fireman that douses himself with gasoline then sets himself on fire then perhaps you got a good comparison. Or a police officer that drives to the innerctiy unarmed and starts taunting gang bangers...
I just feel really bad for his kids. Especially the one he dangled in front of the 15 foot crocodile while feeding a chicken to.
vr, Xei

Actually Irwin put most of his money back into the zoo, his wildlife hospital or his charity organisation. Why should having a family stop you doing something you love doing, especially if you know if anything were to go wrong they will be taken care of well. And i do think it is sad, i mean like most other aussies i sort of cringed at some of the stuff he said and did, but come on, the guy was doing his bit for the good of the world and I respect that, it's more then most people ever do. That's why I do feel a great deal of sadness about his death, even if it was a likely he would die a younger age.

OK, OK I bought the Muse album already from iTunes...haven't listened to it yet though....

As an exhausted father of three, I'd just like to add that I agree with Scott that Irwin's choices were selfish. I'd always wanted to jump out of a plane, but that'll have to wait a while until the kids are out of the house. Skydiving is a pretty safe thing to do, but it's not worth the risk. Irwin should have toned down the risky behaviors and concentrated upon his conservation work for which he does deserve to be praised.

"Why should having a family stop you doing something you love doing, especially if you know if anything were to go wrong they will be taken care of well..."

Sarah, having kids is a choice and a responsibility, there are just some things you simply have to stop doing once you have them. To do less is doing your children and the world a disservice.

On a side note: no amount of $$$ will replace a father (or a mother) despite what evil assholes like Anne 'that bitch' Coulter thinks.

I've always seen Irwin as the living embodiment of the phrase 'follow your bliss'. He clearly had a burning passion for his work, and anyone who can make a very successful living of the thing they love most - I can't concieve of criticizing that. That's a reasonable definition of the meaning of life, to me.

No tears - I think of it more like a soldier, accepting risk for a percieved greater good. It's sad when a soldier dies, but that's part of what you know going in. (Irwin was Special Forces to Earnhardts National Guard Duty, though.)

I agree that I won't miss the usually-lame parodies.

Agree with you Scott. People die every day and I don't feel too sorry for them, it's just the way things go. When you go out of your way to escalate your risk, you better be right with god or whatever, and your family should have pretty well managed expectations that more than the average joe, every time they kiss you goodbye in the morning could be the last.

I feel bad for his family because the loss of a loved one leaves a hole, but all the overwrought "this is so tragic" sentiment floating around in the media is ridiculous.

Wow, that's pretty callous. Irwin was a trained professional in his field. Him working with dangerous animals was probably safer for him than it is for yout to drive a car. He did his job, and did it exceptionally well. That it involved more risk than you're comfortable with isn't his problem. It was THE best way to provide for his children.

Irwin was killed by a FLUKE accident. It might as well have been a car crash. He was not even messing with the stingray. He was only the 2nd or 3rd death in recorded history by a stingray in australia. That is a FLUKE occurrance. It could have happened to anyone diving on the Barrier Reef, a popular tourist destination.

And lets not forget he has a successful, stable business with his animal park, which will be run by his wife from now on, I'm sure. She can handle providing for the children. Irwin had that as his legacy.

So have some sympathy. If you have kids, don't take unnecessary risks? OK don't drive. Use public transportation. It's safer. Wear a helmet at all times, in case you're walking somewhere and get hit by a car, or in case you trip and fall down stairs. Don't drink, ever. Eat as healthy as you possibly can.

Irwin was a trained professional. Working with animals was his skill and his passion, and he was an educator and popularizer of conservationist ethics. That is a Good Person. An unneccessary risk would be if he quit doing that once he had kids to flip burgers or something. That would be safer. It's absurd to say that only the childless can do dangerous jobs. Very absurd.

cephyn,

Would it have been better if he had been eaten by a shark?? He could have been and that happens with some frequency; it's surprising that he died from a ray, but it isn't surprising that he died underwater poking dangerous animals with sticks.

No one has said he should have given up his profession, he just probably should have tried to minimize the risks at the same time. You mention driving, well don't drive drunk and your risk of death plummets while behind the wheel. Keep it on the slow side----your risk plummets again.

We all acknowlege that stepping outside of the house each morning has some risk involved. All I was saying is that once you become a parent, you take on responsibilities beyond your own physical body, responsibilities that you can't fulfill while dead, no matter how much loot you leave behind.

That being said, I'm not glad he's dead, it's just no more sad than a 39 year old who died yesterday of cancer.

Shark attacks? Seriously? Don't let the media overhype you:
In the last 50 years, there have been only 60 human fatalities (1.2 per year) in Australian waters from shark attack. Some years there are none, other years there have been up to three in a year, but the average remains around one per year. Yet each year 100,000s of swimmer-days take place on our beaches, harbours and rivers and the number is increasing with both increasing population and tourism. - Australian Shark Attack Register

Those odds are way lower than the odds you are going to be hit and killed by a drunk driver, regardless of how safely you drive. Plus, Irwin was WELL TRAINED on how to act around wild animals. It's not like you walking into a tiger cage. It was his job, his life, his passion.

It makes no difference that he was killed by a stingray. If he was killed by a drunk driver it would have been JUST as random. He was incurring LESS risk diving on the Barrier Reef than if he was driving down the highway.

I was talking about worldwide shark attacks. I would have to guess that swimming in shark infested waters is more dangerous than driving. Most swimmers aren't swimming in shark-infested waters for one, secondly there are billions of safely driven miles on American Highways each year.

I can confidantly say that I have spent much, much, much more time in my car in the last 20 years than Crocodile man spent at the Great Barrier Reef and he's now dead and I'm not.

Sure more people die each year in car crashes than from sharks, but there are FAR more people driving each and every day than diving around reefs.

While we're at it, how many people die each year in the water from drowning AND animal attacks AND boating accidents? Lots, I'd guess, probably being in the water is far far more dangerous than driving a car engineered for safety.

I quite disagree that this was a fluke accident.

If you play one hand of poker in your life, and you get a royal flush on that one hand, that's a fluke.

If you play poker 8 hours a day, 365 days a year, and somewhere along the way you get a royal flush, that's not a fluke. That's just the odds playing themselves out.

I don't think anyone should be surprised that, well trained or not, some statistically unlikely event happened to Steve Irwin.

However, just because you shouldn't be surprised doesn't mean you can't have any sympathy.

12 Well, I still think it was a freak accident. If he got eaten by a croc, that is not a freak accident, because he put himself in situations that, cumulatively, increase your likelihood of being eaten by a croc. However, I don't see how putting yourself at risk with crocs suddenly raise your chances of dying by a stingray. That is like saying that someone with a risky profession, like underwater welder, has a higher chance of dying by a car accident than a computer programmer.

I do understand the gist of your argument, that Irwin put himself at risk all the time, including with animals that are normally not that dangerous, thus increasing the risk of dying than a normal person, i.e. an underwater welder would have a higher likelihood of dying in a car accident if he drove many more miles in dangerous traffic areas than a computer programmer. However, I think one should apply the same standard to this death as one would if Jacques Cousteau had died by a stingray barb. Because Cousteau did not have the croc rasslin' as a part of his vocation, I think most people would say that it was a freak accident. I guess what I'm saying is that this stingray incident should be treated in isolation, and not be colored by the crocodile portion.

If you still think that it was not a freak accident, and you honestly also believe that about the hypothetical Cousteau case, then that is fine too.

A couple of things I wanted to offer up on.

First, why has Baseball Primer not picked up this post?

ALso, I'm not so callous that I was happy the guy was killed, just thought all the tributes are a bit much considering that he lived his life with his head put squarely in the Tiger's (crock) mouth.

Maybe since half of the most deadly creatures in the world reside in Australia they feel more risk-taking in their behavior. When it comes to having a logic argument, I will probably always be on the side of Chris and Ken, as they are 2 of my favorite people to read at the Toaster.

I do want to say I thank everyone from all places on the globe for their viewpoints. We are the world, we are the children.

13. Funny you bring up Cousteau... didn't his son die in a diving accident too? Ken makes a great point in #12. Concise and to the point. The stringray was Steve Irwin's royal flush. A fluke, but it (death) was likely to happen. More of us would've expected "death by 2 of a kind". vr, Xei

For shame, Scott!!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20355593-2,00.html?from=public_rss

;-)

15 According to Wikipedia, no. He died in a flying boat crash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Cousteau

I suppose he would still be alive if he stayed away from the sea, thus away from flying boats.

You should work on understanding statistics better.
"If you play one hand of poker in your life, and you get a royal flush on that one hand, that's a fluke.

If you play poker 8 hours a day, 365 days a year, and somewhere along the way you get a royal flush, that's not a fluke. That's just the odds playing themselves out."

And yet, the chance of getting a royal flush on any given hand is the same, whether its the 1st hand, the 100th hand, or the 10000th hand.

"A fluke, but it (death) was likely to happen. More of us would've expected "death by 2 of a kind"."

This doesnt make sense, since the basic definition of a fluke is something very unlikely to happen.

You all forget Irwin was trained to deal with wild and dangerous animals. His chance of dying around these creatures is FAR lower than the average person's. Just as a skilled driver's chance of dying was FAR lower than someone who has never driven. With training, you can reduce the risks of "risky" behavior. And regardless, Irwin was NOT bothering this stingray. He just swam over the top of it, it got startled and felt cornered, and shot up its barb. Irwin was unlucky enough to catch it in the heart. If it had missed, hit him in the arm or the leg, he'd have a nasty, painful wound but he'd be here today. Death is not a normal occurrance from stingrays. That is not changed by him playing with snakes or swimming with sharks. Those activities did NOT increase his chances of death by stingray.

You may drive thousands of miles per year, and if you get killed (hopefully not) in a car accident, do you think people will say "well, he drove alot, he had it coming" -- I honestly doubt it, but they might have a point. However, if you drive thousands of miles a year and get killed by a lightning strike or a falling meteor, will people say "Well, he drove a lot, he had it coming" -- of course not. It's not relevant.

18. Perhaps you should read up on the concept of the "law of large numbers" also known as the law of averages. You are looking at a sample size of ONE in your example. We are looking at a sample size of N, where N is a very large number (pick one). Given a large sample size, the odds of death defying feats Steve Irwin was most likely to die of the most dangerous of these feats. Perhaps that would be wrestling crocodiles in swamps, handling poisonous snakes or swimming with sharks and chum. Whichever is the most dangerous is not the point though. The point is he was most likely to die by one of them but it was still possible for him to die of one of the lesser death defying feats, like swimming with stingrays, hugging koalas or what have you. Steve died doing one of animal stunts and yes it was lower on the list of probabilities for causing death, NOT UNLIKE the poker player getting his royal flush. Whether Steve is a trained professional is NOT the point. Surely the animals he harrasses aren't trained and that's not the point either. I really don't see the point in cephyn's argument. :)
vr, Xei

18 I think the bit of rationalization at work here is somewhere along the lines of, "Being unlucky in getting killed by a relatively harmless stingray evens out fact that he's been lucky that he has not been killed by his risky behavior around crocodiles." It's just rationalization, not logic.

Didn't Seigfried or Roy almost bite it when one of his trained tigers bit him?? He certainly had experience around big cats, but if you spend enough time around man-eating animals 'flukey' things start becoming statistically reasonable.

You are right that he did, in all fairness, have a reduced risk from swimming death machines than you are me due to his training, but he greatly offset that by the large amount of time he spent in close proximity to dangerous animals.

I do appreciate that you don't wish to see me killed in a car crash. Me either. I did have an uncle who basically drove 95 miles an hour everywhere he went and eventually the wrong combination of car, curve and tire tread conspired against him and -boom- he was gone. No one was surprised and several people were upset about the kids he left behind. I don't want to say he had it coming...but really, didn't he??

19 "Perhaps that would be wrestling crocodiles in swamps, handling poisonous snakes or swimming with sharks and chum. Whichever is the most dangerous is not the point though."

I disagree. That is EXACTLY the point. Would anyone be talking about this if Irwin died in a car accident? No. But driving is much more dangerous than swimming with a stingray. It can be shown statistically. The only thing in common with this death and a death by crocodile is that both involve a wild creatures. But that doesn't mean both deaths belong in the same category. In my opinion, wrestling crocodiles and having unprotected sex gay sex in AIDS ravaged Africa belong in the same category, though they do not both involve wild animals. Or maybe they do. ;-)

I mean, you can argue it both ways.

Your thought: All deaths by animals belong in the same category, including stingray stings, salmonella poisoning from pet turtles, bird flu from raising chickens.

My thought: All deaths by risky behavor belong in the same category, including eathing fast food, driving too fast and working too hard.

O.K. this is my baptismal "post." Never did I anticipate that I'd be commenting on a topic that I cover quite a bit as a school teacher of life science (6th grade). Anyway, I read many your comments. Several brought out some outstanding points. I'm sorry about the following "book" but please bear with me.

I defend Steve Irwin, although not entirely. His enthusiasm is infectious. Few 44-year olds can relate to kids like he was able to do using both his enthusiasm and the danger element. Still, as someone noted, the "danger" element, for him, a knowledgeable and extremely experienced zoologist, was hardly there. However, I do think he might have been a bit out of his element in the water when the freak accident occurred. He lost his life in a flukey manner passionately aiming towards conservation using his very special ways and means with animals. Moreover, I don't believe he was the provacateur that he seemed to portray for sensationalistic gain (and I believe that gain was worthy). I believe that he did have a way with animals, especially those that we wouldn't ordinarly care so much about such as reptiles.

People that knew him validated my suspicion that he was indeed a devoted father and husband. Being responsible to one's family is vitally important. However, if we believe that he wasn't provoking and knew what he was doing, then it becomes a different matter. It is so especially for such a worthy cause. Often times we'd see him crying for the sake of the many endangered species on our planet shortly after showing obvious affection for his family. He loved his family. He loved what he did. And, what he did was very valuable to our planet.

My problem with Irwin was his foolish decision not to bring antivenin with him for these educational encounters. This is foolish, no matter what your knowledge base is. Nevertheless, I can't state that I've never done anything foolish myself. I would hate to think that my death trying to jump over a blind snow ledge would not be grieved just because it was foolish. Steve Irwin's act always had an arguable cause that couldn't be summarily refuted.

23 Nice post. BTW, I doubt antivenin would have helped, because the stingray spine actually pierced his heart. I don't see how anyone can argue that is not freakish.

The point is indeed that death by stingray is as freakish an accident as any other extremely unlikely way to die. It's less common than a car accident, shark attack, hippo attack, airplane crash, snakebite, carjacking, lightning bolt, falling, crocodile attack, natural disaster. It is STILL an EXTREMELY rare way to die if you only consider people swimming in the ocean. Only 2 or 3 ever recorded in Australia. And at least one was a young child. The venom wouldn't have killed him. It would have hurt like hell, but he'd be alive. Being stung by a stingray is not an extremely rare event - Irwin might have been stung before, I know people that have been stung by stingrays. What is a complete FLUKE is that something that is almost always non-lethal, was. And that is because it put a hole in his heart. Whether its a stingray barb, a knife from a crazed lunatic, or a branch you accidentally tripped on, if it pierces your heart it's going to kill you, and they're all flukes.

Steve Irwin's death was a huge fluke. It had nothing to do with how many animals he worked with or how many times he swam on the barrier reef. Thousands have swum at the barrier reef and not been killed by a stingray.

Irwin worked pretty much every day with dangerous animals, on purpose, and never got killed. Just as you folks drive every day and don't get killed. And he was probably a better animal handler than you are a driver. It's a fluke death that had nothing to do with it. And compassion is in order, for him and his family. He was not taking an out of the ordinary risk.

18 There's a difference in the odds of something happening once in one trial vs. the odds of something happening once in multiple trials.

Look at it like this: if you roll a die, your odds of rolling a five on your first roll are 1-in-6. Your odds of rolling a five on your second roll are also 1-in-6, or 16.7%. But...your odds of rolling a five on either roll are 11-in-36, or 30.5%.

If more times you roll the die, the higher your odds of eventually hitting the five.

Roll the die four times, and your odds of hitting at least one five are over 50%. Roll it six times, and your odds are over 66%.

Now, Irwin's odds were certainly lower than 1-in-6, and we're talking about death instead of a five, but the principle is the same. If you keep playing a game that has one particular possible outcome, the odds of that particular outcome happening go up.

So although this particular incident was unlikely, the odds of Irwin eventually having a deadly animal incident of some sort was much less so, because he kept playing a game where this was a possible outcome.

22 I doubt anybody knows what the actual odds are of getting killed by stingray. I doubt there are statisticians going around keeping track of how many swimmers get within striking distance of stingrays.

But I do know this: swimming is risky. Diving is even riskier. Diving near stingrays is even riskier still. There are plenty of things that could go wrong.

It's the repeated pattern of risky behavior, all adding up, that makes me surprised that anyone is surprised that something like this (although not necessarily this) eventually happened.

And again, just because I'm not surprised, doesn't mean I don't and shouldn't feel bad for him and his family.

26 "It's the repeated pattern of risky behavior, all adding up, that makes me surprised that anyone is surprised that something like this (although not necessarily this) eventually happened."

I get your point, but I wish you would acknowledge a bit of mental categorization you are performing, rather than just acting as if you are not doing it. When you say, "like this," you are putting all animal related fatalities in one big basket. By your logic, a fatal staph infection contracted from a wallaby would fit in the same category.

But I don't put those things in the same category. Why? Because what is the alternative activity Irwin would have been doing, if he weren't doing all these low danger level animal activities? A bunch of low danger level acitivities that everyone else in the world does like drive a car, walk across the street, rip off the warning label off his pillow, etc. For economists, there is the concept of "opportunity cost" to consider alternatives other than just return on investment. In this case, I think there is are "risks of alternate means of death."

What I'm arguing is that if one agrees that the risk of death by stingray death is about the same risk of death by other alternate means risked by the population at large, then one must conclude that Irwin did not unduly bring this death upon himself by taking unnecessary risks.

If you don't accept that the risk of death by stingray at the level of frequency that Irwin engaged in is as low or lower than dying in a car crash at the level of frequency that most of us engage in, then the discussion ends there. Neither of us has the statistics to prove one way or the other. I come down on one side, and you on the other.

28 Well, I see your POV, too, and it's quite logical. But surprise isn't a function of logic, it's a function of emotion. Surprise is the emotion we experience when an event fails to meet our brain's prediction models.

So of course, I'm categorizing the accident in the "getting-close-to-wild-animals-repeatedly-is-dangerous" category. And Irwin was one of the people in the world who seemed most likely to have a fatal accident in that category. That's why I'm not experiencing much surprise by his death.

And I would expect most people's brains to categorize it the same way. But if your brain categorizes it differently, and his death fit does surprise you, so be it. Your categorization surprises me, because I would not have predicted such a categorization. And I think that's what I meant when I said I was surprised that anyone is surprised.

And to reiterate, just because I'm not surprised doesn't mean I feel "he brought this on himself", or that I'm not saddened by it. This was Irwin's calling, and I don't think he should have denied himself or the world of his passion. The world is a better place because some people have the courage to take risks.

I didn't know he had kids, which changes the calculus, but my initial reaction was, "Hey, 'Stabbed through the Heart by a Stingray' is a pretty good thing to have on your head stone." Sort of in the same way that "Died Saving His Family from the Wreckage of a Burning Ship" would be.

It's better than, "Died Old and Alone and Full of Irredeemable Rage", anyway.

sorry Ken, but your logic, reasoning and math are making too much sense for a few of the folks here. Some folks you just can't reason with. :)
vr, Xei

BTW, I have no idea how the word "fit" got into 29. It doesn't seem to fit the sentence it's in at all.

29 I think most people's lack of surprise is due to the lack of details of his death at the time it was first reported. The word, "killed" was used to describe his death without saying how he died. Knowing his reputation, I think most people went, "Ho hum...probably got eaten by a shark or a croc, because he always dangles himself in front of those dangerous animals."

Then when actual detail came out, some people, like me went, "WTF? A stingray? Are you kidding me? I've caught stingrays on a hook and line countless times without a single injury. What a freak accident to have a barb go into your heart..."

Others refused to modify their initial reaction, instead, rationalizing, "Eh...stingray, gator, great white...all the same to me--all dangerous animals he put himself in front of."

Yeah, you could say I was surprised. A stingray. Who'd a thunk it? It's like saying that a great lion tamer got killed by toxoplasmosis contracted while cleaning out his kitty's litter box.

34 Obviously, your knowledge and experience with stingrays added to the level your surprise. I have no experience whatsoever with them, so it might as well have been a croc or a shark for all I know.

It's interesting that Scott's relatively benign opinion regarding Steve Irwin's death sparked 34 comments, yet no one has chimed in to point out that Muse sucks.

Wake me when the lead singer finally drops the Thom Yorke histrionics and the band creates an album that consists of something more than pointless bombast.

It wasn't like Irwin was doing something really dangerous or active provoking dangerous animals when he died. While it is true he was originally there to do a show on some of the "deadliest" animals in the ocean, the weather wasn't good so they decided to wait it out while filming some "soft" stories on the coral reef. My guess is he was swimming around the reef, didn't notice the stringray or didn't know he and his camera man were boxing it in and paid the price. So, I do feel sorry for him because he was obviously a very experienced animal person, but died due to a fluke or a moment of carelessness.

Info from http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/04/australia.irwin.remembered/index.html

33 - Hahaha stealth "Trainspotting" reference there?

I've only really been wondering what Stu Sternberg is going to change his team name to now...

4

i feel you sista

Scott i'm not kidding when i say i haven't seen an NFL game in about 10 years. i'll be watching just to tell my friends me & the guy that rights for the NFL are good buddies (even though i don't know you)

After seeing Will on ESPN.com, I think it's safe to say he didn't quite make it to Brian Giles physique. Yeesh.

Whoa, great thread!

Chris in Illinois is on FIRE...and an Ann Coulter blast at that...YEOW>>>>

re: Steve..."The light that burns twice as bright, burns only half as long."