Are we talking about the same Steve Irwin who dangled his own diapered son from one arm while feeding a crocodile with the other? What is the important lesson other people's children could learn from that antic -- don't worry, crocodiles are not dangerous?
What is the lesson children learn from watching a television series in which a herpetologist grabs hold of every specimen he sees in the wild for no apparent reason other than to admire it while hamming it up for the camera? Is there a genuine conservation message in all of this, or was it entertainment for an entertainment-fixated public, including small children? I guess it is revealing that, according to one admiring zookeeper, Steve Irwin made millions of dollars from all this entertaining manipulation of wildlife, unlike Aldo Leopold who always made a modest salary as a professor. And yes, Aldo Leopold began by treating some wildlife as pests or varmints, including gray wolves (and he used to advocate killing raptors as pests, too). But Leopold learned and grew with experience and his essay about the fierce green fire in the dying eyes of a wolf he shot is a classic lesson in growth by wrong experience. Did Steve Irwin demonstrate such growth, or was he annoying a ray the moment he was killed? Aldo Leopold may not have had millions of dollars to purchase habitat for wildlife, but he used his influence to advocate appropriate public funding for wildlife habitat acquisition. And he personally bought a property in Wisconsin with the famous "Shack" on site, at which he personally engaged in habitat restoration with his graduate students, developing models of how abused habitat could be restored, and his Leopold Preserve continues to this day as a wildlife area and conservation education facility under the Leopold Foundation and his surviving children. I watched Steve Irwin's movie a few years ago where he removed crocodiles from the advance of human-induced "development" but I saw no real conservation message in that effort. In the U.S. we used to relocate the Shawnee Indians and the Choctaws and other human inhabitants of wild lands until we finally had no more space and then we just put them on reservations in places like Oklahoma. Perhaps zoos are the equivalent for wild animals whose habitats have been fragmented or have disappeared before relentless development. If Steve Irwin advocated habitat conservation at all, which I did not see, it was an afterthought and probably not the primary lesson learned by all those little kids who loved to see him hold up an exploited lizard or snake and mischeviously display his smarmy face for the camera. No, I was not a Steve Irwin fan, and I don't believe that his approach was a net positive for wildlife. I never heard a serious conservation message from him that taught anything resembling responsibility for the preservation and conservation of wildlife. It is easy to enjoy something that entertains you for the moment, but to accept responsibility for the difficult work and sacrifices involved in conservation is something completely different. And, while I have not reached audiences of millions, I have trapped hundreds of raptors in the local area and displayed some of them to local landowners and their children who allowed me access to their properties and wished to see the wild raptors prior to release. I would never trap a raptor for the primary purpose of displaying to the public, but I have banded many birds under the gaze of little children who I believe could benefit in a small way from such encounters. When I watched Steve Irwin's shows on television, I never saw any research taking place -- I saw capture of wildlife apparently solely for the purpose of entertaining kids and I would be astonished if an unhealthy collection of kids around the world are not currently grabbing, harrassing, annoying, and harming wildlife because they saw Steve Irwin do it on television, with no discussion of responsibility and possible harm to the subjects of that treatment. So, am I way offbase? I am willing to consider the possibility that I am, but I have yet to see a convincing argument that I am. Cheers all! Stan Moore San Geronimo, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
