Are where the Story Trent Dalton - Four years on, how does Steve Irwin's family cope with missing
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where the Story Trent Dalton
are Photography Russell Shakespeare
Four years on, how does Steve Irwin’s family cope with missing
him? They go crocodile hunting on Cape York.
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indi Irwin props her right leg on smarter. But I only saw Steve Irwin on television.
a rock in the river bank, cringing “No, he was extremely intelligent,” says
as her mother details the moment Franklin. “He was such a complex man. He was
of her conception. “Bindi was one of the best naturalists I’ve ever worked with.
conceived after an awards show People only saw that image of him. And he was
in LA,” Terri is saying. “We fully aware of that image and what it meant.”
both didn’t want to go to the after-party …” “Hi Mum!” Robert calls, high up a tree and
“Oh great,” says 12-year-old Bindi, balancing reaching for a distant branch.
on the rock now. “I’m gonna have to wear “He is Steve,” says Terri. “It’s amazing. Bindi
a paper bag over my head for the rest of my life.” is so much like Steve with this empathy that she
“Hey, we’ve sexed crocodiles together, we has. She’s hard on the outside and very soft on
can share anything,” says Terri. the inside. Robert just is Steve. Even the style
I have just inserted the middle finger of my of his writing, the mannerisms with his hands,
right hand into the posterior opening of a Cape the way he walks. It’s a really interesting study
York crocodile, a watershed moment in a four- in nurture versus nature. There are little things
day croc research tour with the khaki-clad Irwins about him that are so much like Steve that he
and a 30-strong team of scientists, animal couldn’t have gotten from mimicking his dad
wranglers, cooks and several bushmen with because he was only two when he lost his dad.”
unnerving knives. There is no obvious organ Robert hangs from a branch, sloth-like. His
rising inside the croc’s cloaca so I proclaim it blond bowl-cut hair falls from his forehead, his
a girl. “Spot on,” says Professor Craig Franklin. eyes roll back inside his head. He’s chewing on
The University of Queensland zoologist is something. “I’m just eating green ants,” he says.
two years into a ten-year study of crocs in the “You can eat green ants?” I ask.
pristine river systems of the Steve Irwin Wildlife “Yeah, if their bums are big enough.”
Reserve, a 135,000ha Cape York sanctuary “What do they taste like?”
created by the Howard government in 2007 and Bindi kindly answers for her brother: “Like
run by the Irwin family as a living tribute to the a sour lolly.” Free spirit … The image of his father, six-year-old Robert
has been protected from the media, not the natural world.
late crocodile hunter. Wrestling the croc’s jaws The kids are home-schooled. Robert briefly
shut, Terri smiles proudly as the beast covers tried mainstream primary schooling but four sorrowful, unfailingly polite, extremely well-
my hand in a gush of slimy white fluid. Nothing walls and a whiteboard weren’t going to work adjusted and, yes, natural, young girl – such
brings people together like a crocodile sexing. for Steve Irwin’s son. “I’m glad we’re doing comments seem careless and ugly. Then there’s
Six-year-old Robert laughs hysterically at his distance education,” says Terri. “He would a moment – nothing stage-managed, just a little
mother’s recollections of Bindi’s conception. have been the naughty kid because he would moment by a tree – when she looks you in the
He throws a handful of dry leaves in the air. have been bored. When he got bored in school eye and says she wants to carry on the family
“That’s yuck!” he screams. we had him tested and the teachers said, ‘You business because it means she might save a few
Terri smiles at her son. “Wes helped us with know, you have someone who is very gifted, hundred thousand animals; because she thought
your conception,” she says, referring to Australia he’s like a 98.6 percentile in his age group’. her old man was the greatest thing in this world
Zoo director Wes Mannion, who was Steve’s They recommended that he just learn at his and following in his footsteps helps her feel close
best friend. Robert drops his head, hands over own level. He’ll be starting fourth grade this to him again, and you believe her. She knows the
his ears. Terri explains she was working to month and he’s six years old. It’s not off-the- game because she learned it from her dad. The
a strict biological clock, endeavouring to have charts amazing but it is amazing.” spotlight keeps the money rolling in and the
a boy. The family was camping on one of their Terri has the stance of an explorer; a hardy money – millions of it – rolls on to the animals.
North Queensland conservation properties. frontierswoman. She always seems to be “Don’t engage with the bad stuff,” says
“The time came and we asked Wes to take marching uphill, pressing forth. Onward and Terri. “I teach that to Bindi. If there’s
Bindi for a walk to find some snakes,” she says. upward. An optimist. She doesn’t read bad press. something about us in a magazine I’ll look at
“Seven minutes later … ” Don’t engage, she says. She doesn’t let her it first before I let her read the magazine. One
“Oh, please?” begs Bindi. daughter Google her own name. If Bindi did time I missed an article. It was a story about
The Irwins got their boy, an irrepressible she’d find, among fan pages from around the a man who was stalking the family. This man
tearaway with dirt on his face and cuts on his world, barbs of criticism from parents who think ended up going to jail. She didn’t know
legs. He seems less the product of a man and she’s too young to stand under the spotlight. She anything about it and I wanted to keep it that
a woman than something grown from a seed might find the new single from Australian singer- way. And she reads the magazine and she goes,
dropped by a bushlark in the red outback dirt; a songwriter Dan Kelly, Bindi Irwin Apocalypse Jam, ‘This guy went to jail for stalking us!’ If she
boy made of soil and saltwater. His resemblance a bizarre fantasy about Bindi helping save Kelly hadn’t read that she never would have known
to his father, who died on September 4, 2006, is from flaming tornadoes ravaging the Earth. She and a 12-year-old girl shouldn’t go through life
as unsettling as it is profound: the way he skids might find comedian Fiona O’Loughlin’s fearful. You should go through life being
down the steepest incline of a ridge while others controversial comments on ABC TV in March optimistic and having fun and being a kid.”
walk around it; the way he converses in private suggesting Bindi needed a slap in the face. Robert slides down the tree trunk and zips
with stink bugs, or hides in trees for hours just Pouring scorn on a 12-year-old girl seems past his mother toward an aluminium boat tied
to capture nature’s endless pantomime from a cheap way to mine a laugh. To see Bindi in down at the edge of the Wenlock River.
a gallery seat. He seems deeper than his dad, person – a deeply contemplative, sometimes “C’mon, we’ve got crocodiles to catch,” he says.
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His sister follows. In the boat, Bindi adjusts I fill my water bottle straight from the river.
her brother’s life jacket. She picks a blade of I can’t see a single impurity through the plastic.
grass from his hair, rests a protective arm across “There are more fish species in these river
his shoulders. Her best friend. Terri’s eyes systems than anywhere else in Australia,”
linger on her children. She sees the past and Franklin says. So far his team has discovered
the present. She sees the future of 157 bird species on the reserve, 43 reptile
conservation in Australia. And she can’t help species, 19 amphibian species, a growing list
thinking something’s missing. of rare and threatened native species. And the
research is in its infancy. “We don’t even know
ULYSSES IS WAITING. The smell of death yet what we stand to lose,” the professor says.
drifts downriver from a bend in the Wenlock Terri has started a petition called “Save
they call “Chicane”. Franklin eases the throttle Steve’s Place”, to which she has attracted
on the outboard motor. “That’s about as close as 300,000 signatures from around the world. When
you’ll come to what a dead body smells like,” he someone asks for an autograph, she asks for
says. It’s a crocodile bait: half a wild pig, what a signature. Terri versus the power men in suits.
local bushmen call research “volunteers”. There’s a story in the Bindi Wildlife Adventures
Rampant pigs are one of the greatest threats book series in which a team of bauxite miners
to ecological stability in the reserve. The greatest visit the reserve and fall so in love with the
threat is mining. Cape Alumina has proposed to place that they reverse their mining plans. The
strip-mine 12,300ha of the reserve in a project real world doesn’t work like that. If Terri wins
Cape Alumina chief executive Paul Messenger today, the miners will wait till tomorrow.
says would generate $4 billion and 1700 jobs for Four boats tie off at a river bank near
locals, many of them indigenous. The reserve, a weighted rope-bag trap. The air is hot and
or “Steve’s Place”, as Terri calls it, is Aboriginal sticky. Hundreds of flies buzz around the pig
land. She faces the daunting task of convincing bait. Inside the trap is a 4m crocodile behemoth
Cape York traditional owners, representing some named Ulysses, a huffing and puffing “apex”
of the most disadvantaged people in Australia, predator who, one can only presume, won’t
to resist the economic benefits bauxite mining take kindly to scientists fixing a satellite
might represent and help her fight for legislation tracking system behind his head. He’s
You should go through that guarantees the reserve’s protection “in dangerously rested. He will emerge scoring for
life being optimistic perpetuity”. In June, Natural Resources Mines a scrap, desperate to return to the river. Terri
and having fun and and Energy Minister Stephen Robertson enters the trapping area, singing: “Take me to the
declared the Wenlock the tenth river protected river, drop me in the water.” She stops suddenly:
being a kid. under the Bligh Government’s Wild Rivers “Oh my god! Look at the size of that thing.”
conservation scheme. But he added that The core crocodile team of eight men, led by
“mining, tourism and other developments can a rugged protégé of Steve’s called Briano, feed
still occur where they do not threaten the river”. a looped rope around the croc’s upper jaw.
Queensland Senator Mark Furner was at Briano has a swag full of riveting campfire tales
our campsite last night. He’d brought his about Steve, like the time they went to
daughter, Sally, to see what he considers the Indonesia and saw a croc eating human remains
most precious and untapped wildlife reserve in the wake of the 2004 tsunami; like the time
in Queensland. Over camp burritos, he called Steve went to wartorn East Timor to fish a man-
the mining project “absurd”. “Absolutely eating crocodile out of a toxic water tank.
disgraceful,” he said. The team includes Chris Hanna, whose
This morning, wildlife ranger Cecil Arthur, Scottish family donated $12,000 to wildlife
a traditional owner from the local Taepathiggi conservation and in turn got to accompany the
people, said he was offered $3.5 million to sign researchers upriver. His parents, Gordon and
over his claim on the land. “My heritage isn’t Iris, watch from behind a fallen tree trunk.
worth that,” he said. “My stories, my ancestors Gordon recently recovered from a massive brain
aren’t worth that. I can’t act soft. If I act soft haemorrhage that doctors said would kill him or,
they will steamroll me. What structure do they at best, leave him in a vegetative state. “He
have for developing my people? Where’s the walked out of the hospital six days later,” Iris
daycare centres? Where’s the cultural centres? says. When Chris told his father he wanted to
This runs out in 15 years with the mining. Then go to Australia to rescue animals, Gordon
we’ll be left with another Napranum.” That didn’t hesitate to say, “Do it. Life’s short and
community, in what is known as Weipa South, frighteningly random. Live your dream.”
was a ghetto, he said, a place where children “Pull!” says Briano. It takes the full strength
Bindi’s age were having abortions. “Forty years of eight men to drag Ulysses out of the trap. He
we’ve had people mining our land. We should growls – a deep, guttural, prehistoric rumble.
have golden pathways for our kids to walk on.” They need to jump the crocodile to tape his
▲
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deadly mouth shut. But the setting is not ideal.
The area is tight, too many trees for ropes to get
caught in; too many roots to trip on. A silent
tension fills the scene. Ulysses could crush
a boar’s head in one bite. “His head’s like
concrete,” whispers Franklin. “Don’t go
anywhere near the head. If he got a chance to
swipe at you he could snap your legs.” Crocs
can whiplash, leveraging from the tail. Snap.
Briano assembles the jump team. “Terri will
go first,” he says. “And then the rest of the
jump team. You will go like a stack of
dominoes. Bang, bang, bang, bang. You’ve got
to get in there and get those back legs off the
ground so he can’t push off.” The team lines
up behind Terri. It will take six people, maybe
more, to keep Ulysses at bay.
Standing nervously at the back of the jump
team are two teenage surfers from Los Angeles,
Zeke and his best mate Dylan. Zeke is the son
of actor Beau Bridges, but he never mentions
it. Beau stars alongside Bindi in this year’s Free
Willy 4: Escape From Pirate’s Cove, her first lead
role in a feature film. “She’s a natural,” said
Beau, a passionate conservationist who leapt at
Terri’s offer to take his son crocodile hunting in
the deepest wilderness of Cape York. Not that
long ago Zeke’s uncle, Jeff, was in the Kodak Like father, like … Robert and Bindi jump their first crocodile
in the Cape York wildlife reserve named after their dad.
Theatre accepting an Oscar for Best Actor.
Nobody says it out loud in camp, but it’s widely embarrassment or regret is the split second that
acknowledged how cool it is to share a cup of Ulysses drives the back of his head into theirs.
Bushells with the nephew of The Dude from The beast lands flat on the ground and
The Big Lebowski. And here’s Zeke now, Briano spots his moment. “Okay, jump team,
sharpened bowie knife strapped to his belt, wait for my call. On this death roll … ” Terri
about to leap onto a giant croc. breathes deep, hunches down. “Terri, go!”
Ulysses is furious. He begins to death roll in And the 46-year-old widowed mother of
the air, making great twisting leaps, arching, two dives face-first onto the head of the 4m
heaving, every muscle pulling the rope- crocodile. She says she goes into a dreamlike
wielding scientists closer to his snapping jaws. state during a jump. Slow motion. Tunnel vision
Short, sharp directions are given. “Too much on the crocodile’s eyes. Her elbow pushes down
Some families picnic …
rope.” “Coming round, coming round.” “Back, on its mouth as the rest of the team secures its the Irwins wrestle crocs.
back, back.” The ground thunders when long, thick body. Its mouth is secured by tape.
Ulysses lands. Dr Hamish Campbell, working A calming wet blindfold is placed over its eyes
alongside Franklin, will later study the video and a shade canopy is erected above it. And The croc breathes deep and his breath lifts
footage of the scene and count the number of Briano takes a breath. my hair. It’s fresh, like a sea breeze. “We still
death rolls at an incredible 32, unheard of for “Oh my god!” shrieks Terri. “This is one know so little about them,” Terri says. “You
a scientific catch. Bindi taps my shoulder. “Just seriously Olympic crocodile!” get up close and they’re soft and chubby like
remember where you need to run if you have Wrangler Stuart Gudgeon, Head of a baby’s skin and then you learn that they’re
to run,” she says, pointing behind us. “Stick Crocodiles at Australia Zoo, smiles. “He’s great mothers and fathers, extremely protective
to a path. You don’t want to fall over yourself.” pound for pound the toughest fighter I’ve ever and intelligent parents and they’re affectionate
Ulysses rolls again, whipping his body in caught,” he says later. lovers and all the myths just fall away.”
mid-air, pulling a rope from Hanna’s hands Terri nods me closer: “Put your hand on him.” Franklin and Campbell quickly and
and bringing the young Scot’s rear end I place a gentle hand on Ulysses’ head. For painlessly fix the satellite tracking unit to the
frighteningly close to his teeth. A stray rope reasons I don’t know, maybe something about back of Ulysses’ head. More than a hundred
catches briefly on a tree. Panic ripples through age and wisdom, I’m immediately struck by an crocodiles will be tracked in this river system
the team, but Briano remains calm. His relaxed image of my late grandfather. The crocodile’s using world-leading technology developed
voice steadies the situation. If he berates skin – soft and warm and alive – has got me uniquely by this team. Franklin then makes
someone at this point, the whole operation thinking about loss and time and meaning. a small incision in the croc’s side and inserts
falls apart. People freeze when screamed at. The beautiful killer has saddened me. “You’re an acoustic tag that will allow the team to track
The split second it takes for someone to digest in the presence of a dinosaur,” whispers Terri. his movements underwater for about ten years.
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TERRI IRWIN IS WEARING Ellen DeGeneres’S kids who have lost their dads, if they’d been
underwear. She tells us this. It’s what she does. fishing with their dad or they’d been surfing,
She makes jokes. Edgy, risqué jokes. The if they can keep doing that, it feels good.”
underwear was given to her by DeGeneres after Some families picnic, others play board
Terri appeared on her TV talk show. She also games. The Irwins wrestle crocodiles. Deep
has gifts from Letterman, Leno, Larry King. into the Wenlock River, the research team drags
The jokes are a coping mechanism, she says. a 2m crocodile onto an oval sandbar of the
“I’ve been thinking about Steve on this trip. It finest, softest yellow sand. The setting is
feels like he’s still here. It’s been really, really surreal, dreamlike. It feels like we’ve crossed
hard. And I tend to diffuse that with humour. some invisible line between civilisation and
The more emotional it becomes, the sillier a remote and fantastical land of the crocodiles,
I get. Rather than just sit there and cry, I go, something straight out of Robert’s imagination.
‘Let me tell you where Bindi was conceived.’ Grey clouds shift over exotic trees that grow
It diffuses it for me.” for 60 years, flower once and die. The tide is
She was 27 when she met Steve. Before coming in, threatening to submerge the entire
then she had all but given up on finding her sandbar and leave us all wading in a river full
soulmate. She doubts she’ll ever find another. of crocodiles. The team must work quickly.
“People always ask me, ‘Have you started “Robert, you will be jumping the head,” says
dating?’ And I don’t know what to say. I mean, Terri. The boy hustles into position. “Bindi,
‘for as long as we both shall live’, you know? you will come in behind him.” It’s Robert and
And, I’m still here. My heart is still with him.” Bindi’s first jump together, a big occasion for the
Two months before losing Steve, she says, family, a crocodile hunter’s holy communion.
the family completed a ten-year business plan. “I’ve got butterflies flying around inside me,”
That plan was prolonged by Steve’s death. But Robert says. “Excited butterflies.” He hunches
big plans remain: Australia Zoo Las Vegas; down, adopting that famous stance of his
and a resort at Australia Zoo, their home near father’s, hands out in front, knees bent in
Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast. The purses of readiness, equally propped to attack or defend.
It was this team that discovered crocodiles can cashed-up American holidaymakers just might “Patience, Robert,” his mum says. “Focus.”
stay underwater for seven hours. This team help their campaign to protect the Australian The croc lays eyes on the boy, turns, raises
that tracked a crocodile as it made a 900km wilderness forever. “Once this land is its head. The team leader makes the call:
overland odyssey to return to its home. They protected,” says Terri, “I don’t think we “Robert … go!” And Steve Irwin’s six-year-old
take blood samples, temperatures and body should look at it 50 years from now and go, son dives on the crocodile, his teeth gritted,
measurements from Ulysses. They want to ‘Now, let’s mine it’. There’s protection in elbow in front, head to the side. He’s in there
know: where do the crocodiles go? Why have perpetuity. That’s how I feel.” with every fibre of his being. He puts his full
their numbers stabilised? What more can they She turns to her children, who are lost in weight on the croc’s head as Bindi follows in
tell us about life? a game. Bindi is pretending to be a news hard, tackling the crocodile with her right
Robert lifts the crocodile’s tail. He counts cameraman and Robert is a star gracing the world shoulder. A perfect jump. Briano and his team
the number of scutes, or bony plates, running with an interview. “The challenge for me is that stand stunned, passing looks between
down it. He speaks like a scientist giving I’ve always enjoyed being the sidekick while themselves, each acknowledging the moment
a tutorial. “There’s some unusual scute Steve was the front man. I do find it awkward that somehow brings them that little bit closer
patterns here. Double scutes, single scutes. getting out there and saying, ‘Look at me, to their old friend Steve. The boy beams.
They’re hard-ish. Soft-ish.” He flexes the tail I have a message’. Steve did that so naturally. The crocodile is secured and the team takes
as if it were moving through water. “The If I can bring that message to the masses, then a breather. Terri and Bindi pass their hands
individual bits of the tail are fitted together I will have left the world a better place when along the creature’s back. “One day he’ll be
like armour.” I die. And then Robert and Bindi will be stuck 14 foot long and owning this river,” Terri says.
A thought strikes him like lightning and he with it. They’re gonna have to continue.” “Yeah,” says Bindi. “The next generation
bounces on his backside. “I remember this Robert bounces around the team scientists will step forward.”
one crocodile, he was so big he sank the boat! pretending he can’t talk. He mouths long Terri nods knowingly. “Robert,” she says.
His name was Stevo. Not, like, my dad, but sentences, but no sound comes out. “I think you should name him.”
another crocodile named Stevo.” Everybody “Initially, after losing Steve, I didn’t want to Robert thinks hard for a long while, turning
remembers Stevo, a monstrous crocodilian eat or sleep,” says Terri. “I could care less. But his head to the grey sky, to the river, to the
wonder caught a year after Steve Irwin died Bindi and Robert … ” She pauses for a long trees, to the water rapidly shrinking the sandbar.
and named in his honour. moment. “It’s a daily journey. It really is. A lot “It’s the weirdest name ever,” he says. “But
Terri turns to her boy: “You know, Robert, of people are awkward about approaching me, I think I want to call him Tide.”
your dad used to do this all by himself?” ‘Do I mention Steve, do I not mention Steve?’ “Tide!” says Terri.
Robert looks up, awestruck. “Yeah?” I just say ‘carry on as if he was still here’. “Yeah, Tide,” the boy says.
“Yeah.” “With Robert and Bindi we watch Steve’s His mother smiles: “Perfect.” n
Bindi looks over to her mum. Then DVDs. We talk freely about him. They want to To view a gallery and track Ulysses and other crocs of
she drops her head, waving a long blade keep his work going. It’s about nurturing that. the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, visit couriermail.com.au
of grass around like a conductor’s baton. That’s why this trip is so important. For a lot of Follow team research at www.australiazoo.com.au
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