Wildlife Warrior Steve Irwin Killed By Stingray

In safe hands: Steve Irwin gets to grips with a young crocodile

September 4, 2006 — Globally popular Steve Irwin, the Australian wildlife expert and conservationist, was killed on this day when he was attacked by a stingray while filming at the Great Barrier Reef.

Known as “The Crocodile Hunter,” he achieved worldwide fame from the television series of that name which aired in a number of countries from 1992 to 2007. He co-hosted the show with his wife Terri and at the peak of its popularity it was shown in more than 200 countries.

Viewers were astonished by Irwin’s dangerous encounters with creatures including deadly snakes, spiders, lizards, and, of course, crocodiles, which were filmed in Australia’s Outback and later in the jungles of Asia and Africa.

The danger, coupled with his irrepressible energy and boyish enthusiasm made compulsive viewing.

Irwin was born in February 1962 at a suburb of Melbourne on his mother’s 20th birthday. In 1970 his parents, both wildlife enthusiasts, moved the family to Queensland and set up their Reptile and Fauna Park, where Steve grew up around crocodiles and other reptiles.

On his sixth birthday he had been given a venomous snake, triggering what would become a lifelong passion for interacting with wildlife.

Under his father’s supervision he began handling crocodiles at the age of nine and would go on eventually to capture over 100 of them working voluntarily for Queensland's East Coast Crocodile Management scheme. Some were relocated while others were kept at the family park.

Irwin took over management of the park in 1991 and renamed it Australia Zoo in 1998.

He believed conservation was the most important part of his work, saying: “I consider myself a wildlife warrior. My mission is to save the world's endangered species. My job, my mission, the reason I've been put on this planet, is to save wildlife.”

To help achieve this, Irwin built a boat which he named Croc One. He said of it: “I’ve personally designed and refined this magnificent 75-ft vessel to deliver the ultimate in performance during our wildlife expeditions. This fair dinkum, rugged, deep probe expedition boat gives us the chance to research crocs and all other marine wildlife in remote locations.

“My aim whilst building Croc One was to produce a vessel capable of exploring pristine and remote locations to research, document, discover and rescue our precious wildlife.”

On this day he was filming off the coast of Port Douglas in Queensland for a new show called Ocean’s Deadliest. But Irwin snorkelled over a venomous bull stingray in shallow water, inadvertently provoking the animal to attack.

Years later, his cameraman and close friend Justin Lyons described for the first time what happened on that fateful day. In an interview on Australia’s Channel 10 in 2014 he said that the pair had just left their main boat – Croc One – in an inflatable to find something to film when they spotted an 8ft-wide (2.4 meters) stingray in chest-high waters.

Lyons planned to film the huge marine fish swimming away from Irwin – when it all went tragically wrong.

"I had the camera on; I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes in a few seconds," Lyons said.

Stingrays have a number of sharp and venomous barbs on their bodies which they use to defend themselves when they feel threatened. “It probably thought Steve’s shadow was a tiger shark, which feeds on them pretty regularly, so it started to attack him,” Lyons said.

When Irwin was seen by medics, “they pronounced him dead within 10 seconds of looking at him,” Lyons added. Although a number of reports said that the barb had pierced Irwin's heart, the coroner’s report said that it was not so much the wound but the stingray’s venom that killed 44-year-old Irwin. The film of his death has never been shown publicly and is believed to have been destroyed.

Toxicologist Jamie Seymour was on board Croc One that day. He said in a later interview that stingrays are often regarded as “pussycats of the ocean.” He added: “They’re not an issue, but just under some circumstances, it goes wrong.

“It was just a really bad accident. If Steve had been five feet one side or coming from another direction or the sun had been somewhere else, it wouldn’t have happened.”

There have been 17 fatal stingray attacks recorded worldwide. The first reported Australian death happened in 1969 and the latest victim was attacked while swimming near Hobart, Tasmania, in November 2018.

A public memorial service for Steve Irwin was held in Australia Zoo on September 30, 2006. Broadcast live, it is estimated to have been watched by over 300 million viewers worldwide.

* November 15, honouring his life and legacy, has been designated Steve Irwin Day. The date was chosen because it is the birthday of one of his favourite animals, a tortoise from the Galápagos Islands.

Published: June 15, 2022
Updated: June 18, 2022