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Key dates in Croc Hunter's life
05/09/2006 14:56 - (SA)
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| A wooden crocodile outside Australia Zoo at Beerwah is decorated with flowers as a tribute to environmentalist Steve Irwin. (Steve Holland, AP) |
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Sydney - Some key dates in the life of Steve Irwin, the television presenter known around the world for his show The Crocodile Hunter, who died on Monday:
February 22, 1962 - Stephen Robert Irwin born to Lyn and Bob Irwin near Melbourne in Australia's southern Victoria state. A few years later his father, a wildlife enthusiast, moved the family to Queensland state and started a small reptile park at Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast.
February 22, 1968 - Irwin received a 3.6-metre-long scrub python for his sixth birthday, kicking off a lifelong fascination with reptiles.
1980s - Volunteered for the Queensland government's crocodile relocation programme, trapping problem crocodiles and removing them from populated areas.
1991: Irwin took over the park when his parents retired and began building Australia Zoo into a tourist icon.
1991 - Irwin meets Terri Raines, a tourist from Eugene, Oregon, whom he marries six months later. The footage from their honeymoon becomes the first episode of The Crocodile Hunter, which airs in Australia.
1992 - The Crocodile Hunter is picked up by the US Discovery Network and shown worldwide.
2001 - Irwin makes a cameo appearance in the Eddie Murphy film Dr Dolittle 2, in which he attempts to wrestle an alligator and loses an arm.
2002 - Irwin releases his first feature film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, an Australian production set in the Outback in which he mistakes CIA agents for poachers and sets about trying to stop them from catching a crocodile that has swallowed a tracking device.
October 2003 - Prime Minister John Howard invites Irwin to lunch with US President George W Bush at the prime minister's official residence at Canberra.
January 2004 - Irwin provokes an international outcry after being filmed holding his one-month-old son, Bob, while feeding a snapping crocodile. Local authorities and children's rights groups say the incident is tantamount to child abuse. Irwin responds by saying he was in "absolute and complete control".
June 2004 - Irwin was investigated for a possible criminal breach of wildlife laws after allegedly clowning around with whales and penguins while filming a documentary in Antarctica. He was cleared of wrongdoing, escaping a possible A$1m fine and two years in prison.
September 4, 2006 - Irwin is fatally stabbed in the chest by a stingray barb while filming a television segment on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
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