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October 16, 2006

Steve Irwin built an empire based on his image as a madcap wildlife warrior. In part two of this look inside the family business, Robert Wainwright asks whether it can survive without its figurehead.

IF THE Brisbane filmmaker John Stainton was Steve Irwin's guiding light then Wes Mannion was his acolyte. Mannion walks and talks like the Crocodile Hunter. Well, not quite, but the impact is the same, with his purposeful khaki stride and unbridled, almost childlike enthusiasm for Australia Zoo and its animals. The zoo covers 32 hectares. Within a decade it will have expanded to five times this size - an entertainment complex taking several days to explore.

It employs 530 people and has its own construction division, complete with "rock mockers", who build with concrete to replicate natural stone. Their handiwork is particularly imposing in the tiger enclosure, where massive temple walls and statues reminiscent of Cambodia's Angkor Wat tower over the animals.

Like his mentor, Mannion can't get his words out fast enough, tripping and stumbling over his adoration for the mate who drew him into the tiny reptile park as a 14-year-old and never let him go. Now he runs the place.

You can forgive Mannion his hero-worship. Nearly a decade younger than Irwin, but at his side since his formative early teens, he was like a little brother as much as a mate; loving and in awe. That Irwin once rescued him from the jaws of a crocodile in an attack that left him needing 150 stitches might also be a factor.

As we walk, Mannion swings his hand left and right to show where exhibits are either under construction or will be built. The elephant enclosure will be finished by Christmas; there's a generous day enclosure with giant swimming pool, fed by a creek and all beneath a massive stone wall that looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. At night the pachyderms are led to another 12-hectare lot behind the zoo where they can roam at will.

As we watch, the three female Asian elephants - Siam, Sabu and Bimbo - appear to be dissing the backhoe operator. They are certainly not fearful of their surroundings and, like many of the exhibits here, spend much of their time wandering the grounds (with handlers) and mixing with the crowds. It's part of the Irwin philosophy.

Mannion points out beyond the property boundary towards the expanse of bushland with the spectacular Glass House Mountains as a backdrop. Land is not an issue here because Irwin bought out several neighbours four years ago for a couple of million dollars each. Most of the money earned from his television and film exploits has been pumped into the zoo, as well as into the purchase of land for wildlife conservation in Vanuatu, Fiji and the United States. Money was always a touchy subject for a bloke who drove a mud-spattered truck and whose family still lives - at least some of the time - in a three-bedroom house built 30 years ago in the grounds of the zoo by his taciturn father, Bob snr. There is, of course, the waterfront get-away at nearby Minyama, bought two years ago for $3.2 million, where Irwin would park his 22-metre research vessel Croc One.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-show-must-go-on-at-irwin-inc/2006/10/15/1160850814521.html?page=2

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