rip steve irwin

[orangemoon11]

stupid manta ray. what a shitty way to go. i hate that steve irwin is dead. he may have annoyed as many people as he entertained, but he did amazing things for the wildlife of Australia and he is a hero to me. a lot of the things he did on the show may have looked moronic, but he started handling reptiles around the time he learned to walk (his father was an expert as well), and at the time of his death, he was a leading expert in reptiles. crocodile hunter made him a millionaire, but he lived modestly and invested just about everything he made back into his zoo (Australia Zoo), into wildlife conservation and public education. that, is cool. my time there as a volunteer in 2001 is still one of the best times i've ever had in my life. being in that place for me was akin to being a little kid in the middle of fao schwartz or willy wonka's chocolate factory (without the blowing up into a blueberry or being sucked into the chocolate tuhbe scary stuff). i worked mainly with the foxes, dingoes, camels, kangaroos, wallabies, and koalas (i got to hold a baby koala! jealous?), but i got to hang with big snakes, skinks, and tortoises as well. i left with a great respect and admiration for reptiles. harriet the tortoise (the oldest living animal on the planet until her recent death, collected by charles darwin!) was my very good buddy. i spent all my free time with her in her pen, hand-feeding her her leftovers from lunch and scratching her shell and under her legs, which she loved. i was just crazy about her. i only saw steve once, never spoke to him (and no, he doesn't talk like that all the time). his daughter bindi was only 3 when i was there, i saw her around the zoo all the time with her nanny, or her mother. there was a little kid's playground near the snackbar with a mini-crocodile made of foam rubber...i saw her once wrestling the fake croc and saying something about "daddy, daddy."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14663786/