Tears....

Irwins family pleads time to morn.............

Reporter: Lisa Millar
MARK COLVIN: Steve Irwin's family may be wanting to deal with their grief privately, but they're well aware of just what a public figure he was and the extraordinary outpouring of emotion from his fans.

With that in mind, his father Bob Irwin today made the tough decision to face the media scrum outside the Australia Zoo where his son lived and worked for most of his life.

He was thankful for the support, but he asked people - and especially the media - to give his daughter-in-law Terri time to mourn.

Lisa Millar joins us now from outside the zoo on the Sunshine Coast.

(to Lisa Millar) Lisa, Bob Irwin's been there a lot himself working at the zoo, he was its original owner. Did he talk about the dangers that he and his son had faced together?

LISA MILLAR: Well he did, I mean the two of them have been knocking around, as it were, this zoo since Steve Irwin was nine-years-old. And in fact Bob Irwin today promised to try and do whatever he could to keep the zoo operational and to continue the work of his son.

But he was asked whether Steve was perhaps a little bit more game around the animals, and whether the dangers weighed on either of them, and this was how he answered those questions:

BOB IRWIN: Over the years Steve and I have had a lot of adventures together, and there's been many occasions when anything could have gone wrong, and Steve knew the risks involved with the type of work he was doing, and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Both of us… both of us over the years have had some very close shaves, I suppose you'd say, and we both approached it the same way, in that we made jokes of it. That's not to say that we were careless, but we treated it like it was just part of the job, nothing to worry about, really.

MARK COLVIN: Steve Irwin's father Bob.

(to Lisa Millar) Lisa Millar, how does he say that Teri Irwin, Steve's wife, is coping?

LISA MILLAR: Well she hasn't been seen at all since she left Tasmania, where she was trekking when she was told about the news of her husband's death. She's apparently locked herself away in the home with their children Bob and Bindi, who are three and eight years of age.

He says that she's doing well considering, but that she's extremely concerned for the wellbeing of the children. And in fact he made a plea for the media to try and give her a break, to just let her be and to mourn in private.

He and his son, as I said, were very close, and he spent a bit of the time of the press conference today actually reminiscing about what kind of bloke his son was, and the relationship that they had. And this is what he said:

BOB IRWIN: Tough, it's tough.

Steve and I… I'd like to finish this please, because it's important…

Steve and I weren't like father and son, we never were, we were good mates, he's a buddy. He's a guy I could go out… he'd come up to the property, and we'd wander off and we'd maybe have a barbecue, maybe we'd just wander off in the scrub, light a fire, I'd have a couple of smokes, because I'm a criminal I smoke. And we might sit around the fire talking for hours on end about nothing really. And it was just so enjoyable.

And I'm a lucky, I'm a lucky, lucky guy that I've had the opportunity to have a son like Steve.

MARK COLVIN: Bob Irwin again.

(to Lisa Millar) Lisa Millar, there have been offers of a state funeral in Queensland. Did Bob Irwin give any indication if the family wanted that?

LISA MILLAR: Well he said they haven't even had a chance really to talk about the burial arrangements, and he did say that the final decision would be up to his daughter-in-law.

But he gave every indication that it's probably unlikely to happen. He doesn't think it's something that his son would have wanted. And of course that sparked a flurry of questions about why on earth Steve Irwin wouldn't have wanted a state funeral, and this is how he responded:

BOB IRWIN: Because he's an ordinary guy, he's just an ordinary bloke, and he wants to be remembered as an ordinary bloke. There's never been anybody else that I know of that had the personality that Steve had, and the strength, and the conviction of what he believed in. And his message was conservation. And he was such a strong person that people all over the world believed in him.

MARK COLVIN: Bob Irwin, speaking about his son Steve outside the Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast this afternoon to reporters, including our Lisa Millar.