Steve Irwin Death Footage - fasrside After Steve Irwin was tragically killed by an eight-foot stingray in 2006 during filming for a documentary, his family and friends made a silent pact never to air the footage or talk about his final moments.
There's going to be one less morbid tape soiling the airwaves these days.
- 4 is the fifth anniversary of the death of Steve Irwin, the Australian wildlife presenter fatally speared by a stingray's barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef. His death was a shock.
- After his death, the vessel MV Robert Hunter owned by the environmental action group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was renamed MY Steve Irwin. Shortly before his death, Irwin had been investigating joining Sea Shepherd's 2007–2008 voyage to Antarctica to disrupt Japanese whaling activity.
In her first interview since her husband's death, Steve Irwin's widow, Terri, said that the video footage captured of the Crocodile Hunter's run-in with the stingray that killed him will never be broadcast on television.
Crocodile Hunter Death Video Real
'No. No. What purpose would that serve,' Terri Irwin told ABC's 20/20 in a segment set to air Wednesday, adding that she has never watched the tape, either. 'It was an accident so stupid. It was like running with a pencil. It was not risk he was taking. It was just an accident.'
Irwin, 44, was killed Sept. 4 while filming a documentary near Australia's Great Barrier Reef when he was stung in the heart by a stingray. Wildlife experts have called the TV star and conservationist's death a 'freak accident.'
More than 5,000 people gathered last Tuesday at Irwin's Australia Zoo to pay tribute to the man known the world over for his 'Crikey' outbursts and enthusiasm for some of nature's deadliest creatures.
Stingray Steve Irwin
'I have to make sure the zoo keeps running,' Terri Irwin told 20/20's Barbara Walters. 'He planned all that masterfully. He planned this wonderful business so that it could continue if anything happened to him.'
Despite Irwin's jovial demeanor, Terri Irwin said that her late husband had a feeling he wasn't going to live to a ripe old age, and not just because he bucked the odds every day, cozying up to poisonous snakes and wrestling with creatures from the deep. 'He'd talk about it often,' she said. 'But it wasn't because of any danger from wildlife. That was never a consideration. He just felt life could be dangerous.'
Terri, who's from Oregon, and Steve Irwin tied the knot in 1992, six months after meeting in Australia, where Terri was on vacation. 'I fell then and there, love at first sight,' she said.
The khaki-clad Croc Hunter told the pretty American that he had a girlfriend, though.
'I was a little bit devastated,' she told Walters. But, luckily that 'girlfriend' turned out to be Irwin's pet dog, Sue.
'I had romance like I didn't think existed anymore, a wonderful romance,' Terri Irwin, who frequently traveled with her mate on his adventures and costarred in the 2002 film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, said. 'He was passionate and determined and enthusiastic.'
It wasn't always paradise in the Outback, of course, but the Irwins made it work. 'There were so many things that made me crazy,' Terri recalled, 'like his desire to do everything now. He had a real sense of urgency with his life and no side-view business plan. If you got plans, we'll do them now.'
The Croc Hunter's other half said that she is coping with her husband's death 'one minute at a time, sometimes an hour at a time.'
'With great faith, great determination,' she said. 'I have two beautiful children. And they really are my strength.'
Eight-year-old Bindi told the crowd at her father's public memorial service that she plans to carry on his conservationist efforts and promote his love for nature. The little girl's speech, which she studiously read from a piece of notepaper, prompted a standing ovation from the thousands in attendance.
Bindi, who also has a two-year-old brother, Robert, is already making good on her word, hosting a series on the Discovery Network called Bindi the Jungle Girl.
'Bindi has a spirituality about her that I've seen with Steve,' Terri Irwin said. 'She has unbelievable sensitivity. She has an uncanny connection with wildlife. She has a love for them that was just like her dad's.'
FOOTAGE of Steve Irwin's death would never be shown on television, his wife said in her first interview since the naturalist was killed by the barb of a stingray's tail.
Asked in an interview with the American ABC news program 20/20 whether the footage of Irwin's September 4 death would ever be aired on television, Terri Irwin was blunt and emphatic.
'It won't be. No. No. What purpose would that serve,' she said, adding that she had not looked at the footage of her husband's death.
That footage shows Irwin swimming above a stingray, while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef, when it lashed out and speared him in the heart with its barbed tail, according to Irwin's manager, John Stainton, who said Irwin pulled the barb from his chest before losing consciousness.
US-born Terri Irwin said her 44-year-old husband knew he would not live a long life.
'He'd talk about it often. But it wasn't because of any danger from wildlife. That was never a consideration. He just felt life could be dangerous,' she said in the interview, to be broadcast in the United States tomorrow evening.
Irwin's family and friends held a private funeral at his beloved Australia Zoo - where he was also buried.
A public televised memorial service was held at the zoo's Crocoseum last Wednesday.
His 46 Crocodile Hunter documentaries were watched by 200 million people worldwide, and his death prompted an international outpouring of grief.
His wife told of how she had been travelling in a remote part of Tasmania, conducting research, with the couple's children, Bindi Sue, 8, and two-year-old Robert Clarence, when she was told about Irwin's death.
'It was an accident so stupid. It was like running with a pencil. It was not risk he was taking,' she said.
'It was just an accident. And I couldn't fall to pieces because the children were there.'
Known for his trademark khaki shorts and shirts and catchphrase 'Crikey', Irwin grew up around wild animals, trapping crocodiles and releasing them in his parent's reptile park, which would later become Australia Zoo.
'I have to make sure the zoo keeps running,' Terri Irwin said.
'He planned all of that masterfully. He planned this wonderful business so that it could continue if anything happened to him.'
She said she was surviving 'one minute at a time' and that what she would miss most about him was that he was fun.
'Now I'm going to work really hard at having fun again ... I'm Mrs Steve Irwin. I've got a lot to live up to,' she said.
Steve Irwin Death Original Footage
Originally published asTerri Irwin vetoes death footage