Crocodile Hunter

I don’t talk much about my day job on the website. I know it’s shocking that I don’t earn my living writing here every day, but sadly bills must be paid. I will say that I can work strange hours. For the past 6 months or so I don’t leave my house till just after 9 am. For the past month or two my morning ritual has been eating breakfast and watching the Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet. Because of that, I have to say, I miss Steve Irwin.

It has been six years since Steve was killed in that bizarre incident with a stingray and I think we are all worse off without him. I realize that he was not perfect; there were enough criticisms of him out there. He may have glossed over some things or sensationalized others, but his message was still there. There are amazing creatures out there and we have to be careful or they won’t be there anymore.

One of my favorite things about him, is he found the beauty in reptiles. I’m drawn to a lot of those animals that don’t traditionally fall into the cute category. I love monitor lizards, snakes of all kinds, and don’t get me started on tortoises (Hammerhead sharks and Tasmanian Devils too!). Steve was the first wildlife host that I can think of that fully embraced the scalier side of the animal kingdom and talked about how wonderful they are.

There was something infectious about his passion. After watching him talk about an animal, you were excited about that animal. You wanted to make sure it would be around for a long time. That kind of passion is a rare thing. Animal Planet can show all the Bigfoot Hunters they want to at night; I’ll be watching the Crocodile Hunter every morning before work.