Free Republic

Police have named the man who died at a Hobart beach from a suspected stingray puncture wound, while an expert in the marine species has urged calm despite increased numbers of the animals in Tasmanian waters. Nicolas Ricketts, 42, died from cardiac arrest on Saturday shortly after he sustained the injury to his lower abdomen, believed to have been inflicted by a stingray, while swimming at Lauderdale, east of Hobart. Friends and family of Mr Ricketts, known widely as "Ned" who worked as a plumber and had served with the Australian Navy, gathered at the spot where he died yesterday....

The Australian government says it is its priority to make sure the three West Australian protesters who have spent more than 24 hours detained on a Japanese whaling security ship were being well cared for. The three West Australian men boarded the Shonan Maru No.2 in the early hours of Sunday morning off the coast of Bunbury in an attempt to force it to abandon its pursuit of the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin. Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the government had been in touch with the Japanese government to find out exactly where the ship was in Australia's exclusive economic...

After last year's successful actions against illegal bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean, Sea Shepherd is facing a legal setback. The activist organization, subject on Animal Planet's Whale Wars series, has been hit by a lawsuit brought by Maltese fishermen who claim Sea Shepherd caused them commercial damage. As a result the Shepherd's ship the Steve Irwin is being detained in the Shetland Islands by a British court. Should the bond of over $1.4 million not be posted the ship will be held until the trial and possibly sold. Sea Shepherd is soliciting donations to help raise the money to...

Japanese vessel smashes into Sea Shepherd anti-whaling boat Ady Gil in Aussie waters. Sea Shephard wants police in Antarctica. Videos

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. 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...

BRISBANE, Australia — The father of late television star Steve Irwin said he quit the family's Australian conservation park because he had become a "disrupting influence," although the widow of the khaki-clad "Crocodile Hunter" denies a rift in the clan. Australian media have speculated for months that Terri Irwin, the U.S.-born wife of the television host and mother of his two children, had fallen out with Bob Irwin following his son's death in a 2006 stingray attack. In brief excerpts released Thursday of Bob Irwin's first interview since he left the park earlier this year, he told the Australian Broadcasting...

NOTHING was going to spoil Bindi Irwin's ninth birthday party and certainly not some crocodile flatulence. But then as the daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, Bindi's ninth birthday bash at the family's Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast today was always going to be different. The star of the birthday show was, not unexpectedly, a crocodile - the 500kg monster dubbed Graeme who performed death rolls on cue for Bindi's mother Terri and zoo director Wes Mannion, who had been Steve's best friend. Noticing bubbles in the water as the croc swam into the arena, Terri had...

BEERWAH, Australia - Bindi Irwin wants her new TV show to continue the educational and conservation work of her father, the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. "I'm proud to be showing kids that conservation and helping wildlife is a stack of fun," the 8-year-old Bindi said Friday at the Australian launch of "Bindi: The Jungle Girl." "It's just the most amazing thing that we could ever do," she said. Producers say the show will feature Steve Irwin in scenes shot before he was killed by a stingray last fall while filming one of his popular television documentaries. Irwin's widow, Terri,...

On Right now with Bindi & Jack Hanna and others

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bindi Irwin, the 8-year-old daughter of late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, will launch her new television series in June with her father appearing in some episodes, Discovery Kids Channel said on Tuesday. The exuberant, khaki-clad Australian naturalist and his daughter began filming the 26-part cable TV show, "Bindi: The Jungle Girl," in early 2006 with the aim of getting children more interested in wildlife conservation. Irwin, however, died last September after a stingray's serrated barb pierced his heart while he was filming scenes for a documentary off Australia's northeast coast. But after 44-year-old Irwin's death, his...

Really funny Steve Irwin video. He'll be missed.

KERRY O'BRIEN: What does Bindi Irwin have in common with Winston Churchill, Indira Gandhi and Nelson Mandela? Answer: Washington's National Press Club. She's only eight years old but, for the past fortnight, Bindi Irwin has spearheaded a quite staggering publicity blitz across America, selling the virtues of the land down under. From Hollywood to the Big Apple, the Bindi Irwin bandwagon relentlessly sang, danced and charmed everyone from fans to television talk show hosts. The final stop for the charismatic daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was the national capital. Tracy Bowden reports on the Bindi phenomenon. TRACY...

More info at link.

Sydney - The eight-year-old daughter of late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin will star in a high-profile promotional US tour this week, but she will not be forced to perform, her manager said on Tuesday. Bindi Irwin, whose wildlife television star father was killed by a stingray barb last September, will visit Los Angeles and New York as part of Tourism Australia's G'Day USA week to promote the country. She is set to perform her song and dance stage show Bindi and The Crocmen and feature on TV talk shows including The Ellen Degeneres Show and The Late Show with David...

THE wife of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin has been handed the footage of his death after Queensland authorities broke with protocol to ensure it did not pass into the wrong hands. State Coroner Michael Barnes told The Australian that such footage was normally held by the Coroner in perpetuity but copies of film showing Irwin being gored by a stingray had been destroyed amid fears it would be leaked and sold on the black market. Mr Barnes said the original tape was handed to Terri Irwin just before Christmas, with the coronial investigation into the death almost completed. "When the...

SOMETIME on Christmas Day, Terri Irwin will have a quiet word with her husband. "I'll just tell Steve how much we love him and miss him and how much we wish he were here with us," Terri said. "But I'll also let him know that he is still very much a part of our Christmas Day and very much a part of our family." It has been three and a half months since the death of Steve Irwin from injuries caused by a stingray barb, and as the Irwin family faces its first Christmas without him, Terri is determined to...

THE executive producer of the BBC's Planet Earth series has branded the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin a "showman" more interested in his own stardom than the animal kingdom. Alastair Fothergill launched an extraordinary attack on the Australian TV star who was killed by a stingray while making a wildlife program in September. "What Steve Irwin did for a living was as different from what we do as it's possible to get," he told the Radio Times. "Let's face it, Steve was a showman. Yes, he introduced a lot of people to natural history, but his basic stock in trade...

copy & paste--- http://worldofwonder.net/image1/maherasirwin.jpg

The creators of South Park have never been afraid to upset celebrities - and many of the show's viewers. From jokes about religion and homosexuality to four-letter tirades, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always mixed shock tactics with satire in the hit cartoon series. But they were accused of hitting a new low last night after lampooning the demise of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin just weeks after his death. The latest episode shows an animated Irwin in Hell with a stingray poking out of his bleeding chest. Irwin, 44, died in September after he was impaled by a stingray's...

Link to video: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2093706n