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TThe late icon of conservation, Steve "The Crocodile Hunter", Irwin would have turned 57 on Friday and Google chose this day to mark his extraordinary life with a touching slideshow of Google Doodle. Irwin was very involved in the animal world, especially reptiles, from an early age, as his parents ran a reptile park while he was a child in Australia.
At the same time as you, he finally started fighting the crocodiles, the saltiest and crudest mud lords of nature, proving that what he would do later in life was not a breakup head for television.
The work outside of Irwin included volunteering for the Queensland East Coast Crocodile Management Program. With this group, he captured and moved the endangered saltwater crocodile, objectively the largest, and probably the most naughty, reptile on Earth.
We are looking for a super crocodile! "
"We're looking for a great fang!" Says Irwin in "Find a Great Fang" episode of the fifth season of The crocodile hunter aired for the first time on Animal Planet in July 2004.
The episode brings together a team of experienced crocodile experts who use the latest technologies (at the time) to search for the saltwater crocodile, a secret creature.
If Irwin had not drawn more attention to the hypercarnivore apex predator, it would have been harder to find – but not impossible. In fact, when airing its program, the salt crocodile population was booming in Australia and their interactions with humans were very negative at a record pace.
Thanks to conservation efforts, the saltwater crocodile is now on IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, which is less of a concern. However, its range – which once stretched from southeastern Asia to northern Australia – is much narrower than it was. According to research from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, it is nowhere to be found in Thailand, Laos or Vietnam.
The reason why saltwater crocodiles are not as prevalent as before? This is not as revealing as an illegal trade around their skin; his the loss of habitat. As human infrastructure and construction progress, less natural ecosystem is available for fangs, but also for their prey. The same can be said of animals in North America, as subdivisions in areas such as Colorado and the land of mountain lions.
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A 2005 study published in the newspaper on saltwater crocodiles endangering human life – the result of human expansion on previously untamed lands – study published in 2005 Wilderness & Environmental Medicine showed that the rate of crocodile attacks increased every decade. This increase is related to the growth of the wild crocodile population, which was protected in 1971 and exploded shortly thereafter. From 5,000 wild fangs in 1971, their number rose to 75,000 In 2000. Crikey!
From 1971 to 2004, there were 62 attacks in Australia, including 63% in the Northern Territory, where the crocodile is found. In 2013, The Guardian reported that the Northern Territory claimed 62 total attacks between the '71 and the 13 ', with 18 deadly attacks.
Irwin is not dead from a crocodile attack, though. The beloved environmental defender was stung several times very quickly by a short-tailed racquet in 2006 while he was snorkeling in shallow waters at Batt Reef near Port Douglas, in Queensland, Australia.
His legacy, in addition to inspiring a whole generation to think more seriously about wildlife, could also be to continually preserve one of nature's most nasty and salty creatures.
See also: Scientists have named a crocodile after Motörhead's Lemmy
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