Crikey, he lives!
Life & style
Written by JFK Miller
Tuesday, 31 March 2009 18:00
Australia Zoo is a bizarre shrine to slain Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin

May your soul rest in peace, Steve Irwin, because your estate certainly won’t let it.
Australia Zoo, the native Australian animal reserve founded in Queensland by the late Crocodile Hunter, has decided it’s good business to keep the high-octane Irwin persona alive.
Not just alive, in fact, but in rude health...and still wrestling crocodiles.

Annoyances
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Irwin was just 44 when he died in 2006 after being pierced through the heart by the barb of a stingray while shooting a marine life documentary off the Queensland coast.
His death unleashed a wave of national mourning in Australia, similar in feeling (if not in form) to the outpouring of grief shown by the British over the death of Princess Diana, or by Americans over the assassination of President Kennedy.
Not knowing where you were when you learned of Irwin’s demise is regarded as un-Australian. Australia Zoo, where Irwin is buried at a location known only to his family, is Down Under’s version of Arlington National Cemetery.

The pilgrimage starts on the way to the zoo, situated in Beerwah, approximately 80km north of Brisbane, the state capital.
Huge roadside billboards show the manchild-faced Irwin gripping a croc, which seems to have submitted to his rough charms, as we, too, are expected to.
The name of the approach road – the Steve Irwin Way – leaves us in no doubt that we are leaving reality behind and entering a whole new dimension.

The animals at Australia Zoo come in two varieties – furry and deadly. But the animals are just a sideshow, the main event is Irwin himself.
His image and likeness is stamped all over the reserve like a technicolored plague.

Zoo attendants are dressed in the Crocodile Hunter’s uniform – khaki-colored shirts and shorts; a life-size bronze statue of Irwin and family (with perfunctory crocodile) greets visitors at the zoo entrance; recordings of Irwin’s unmistakable voice (breathless, quizzical, endlessly rising in intonation) entertain gawking spectators crowding around the zoo’s native Australian animals. Listening to Irwin’s unbridled enthusiasm for his captured specimens is a reminder that the Aussie hero wasn’t just larger than life, but larger than death, too.

Nowhere in the zoo does the specter of Irwin loom larger than in the gift shop.
Shelves are stacked with Irwin talking action figures, one of which screams: “Check out the size of this bloke! One false move and he’d take me head off!”
There’s the 100-page CRIKEY! Magazine, complete with huge capital letters so you can’t miss it on the shelf.
There are Irwin coffee mugs, Irwin ashtrays, Irwin snow globes, Irwin drink coolers, Irwin shot glasses, Irwin spoons, Irwin lunch boxes, Irwin lighters, Irwin postcards, Irwin floaty pens and Irwin fridge magnets.
Not since Graceland has a corpse been so shamelessly exploited.

The whole family is in on the act. Irwin’s young daughter, Bindi, has her own ‘Bindi Wear’ fashion label. My Steve, the autobiography of Irwin’s widow, Terri, is also on sale.
You can even buy an Irwin family print to put next to your wedding photo on the mantelpiece.
Even Irwin’s grandfather and great-grandfather, both soldiers killed in World War II, get a nod in the DVD, Steve Irwin’s Ghosts of War.
Another DVD, Swimming with Sharks: A Steve Irwin Adventure, shows the Crocodile Hunter’s passion for deadly marine life was equal to his zeal for the deadly
amphibians which made his name.
One DVD goes as far as to proclaim Irwin’s messianic qualities: He Changed the World.