While I always thought he was a bit of an oddball myself (much like myself which gave me respect for the man), not in a bad way of course, just in an eccentric kind of way, he was a good man who did his best to educate many on the ways of the wilderness, teaching respect for our natural world. He may not have been as great as some, like David Suzuki, Lorne Greene, or Jaques Cousteau, but he did his part to stand for nature and the world around him, he may have even become as great as these men if his life had not been cut so short by the fates.

Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) was killed yesterday filming a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef. He was killed by an encounter with a Stingray which spiked him thru the heart, though I always thought it would be a croc or snake that got him.

While not really related to gaming I found his work to be informative and useful when dealing with Rangers and Beastmasters, as well as similiar classes and as he is a popular figure, I thought I'd mention it to those who still didn't know. May he rest in peace.

Here is a link to the related .

Steve Irwin was both a character and a crusader, and one of his close colleagues brought up a very interesting and spot-on point about his career. The basic gist was that in this world of shorter attention spans and media overload, Steve managed to not only carve out his own niche in creating awareness about wildlife preservation, but also managed to capture the imaginations (AND attention spans) of children and adults worldwide. Yes, it was his "schtick", but it got through the media clutter.
My heart goes out not only to Steve's family and friends, but to the countless parents who have been forced to explain this tragedy to their young ones... (as a side note, and this is totally uncorroborated and second-hand, I heard that Steve himself thought that if he was gonna go, it would be in the water. His prowess on land with land and shallow aquatic-based reptiles and amphibians was his forte... Submerged humans are in a world that is fundamentally alien to their physiology, and the "playing field" shifts even more severely towards the fully aquatic creatures...)

I also hope there isn't any anti-stingray backlash. Before he passed away, Peter Benchley noted in National Geographic a few years ago that his greatest regret in writing "Jaws" was the anti-shark hysteria and misunderstanding the book and subsequent movie generated. Nature is what it is, and our interaction with it is always a roll of the dice, because our fundamental instincts as humans are so far removed from our ancestral past. It may look cute and cuddly, but if it's wild, it's wild, and there's no room for misplaced value judgements of right or wrong in human terms. Steve knew this perhaps better than many; he crusaded for the "nasty" critters and their rightful place on this planet. The orca or shark that takes out a baby seal, or the anaconda that swallows up the village child isn't "vicious", it is merely doing what it does; surviving as a part of the ecosystem. If we continue to encroach on that system, we can expect to suffer accordingly, just as the creatures suffer that find their habitats shrinking... (SOAPBOX! SOAPBOX! I'll cut it off right there.)

"Crocs Rule!!!"

Sometimes you expect more from the media, even the tabloid types, I was impressed that shows like Discovery.ca and regular news media did tributes and tried to make it understood that what happened in this case was merely an accident and that the stingray was not to be considered some hostile killer that was out to get all humans...

Then I catch advertisements for the show Insider Edition, an american tabloid media show regarding the death of this great man, and the first thing I get from it is that Stingrays are deadly killers, out to destroy us making them sound worse than any other possible threat on our diverse and wonderful wild world, all to their usual dramatic out to get you type music. This kind of attitude really gets to me, it's sad that something like this even comes to light, and reminds me there are reasons why I don't watch shows like this. That shows like this even exist really worries me as it's these kind of reporters and their reporting that really push the idea of hate.

A very disgusted Shatteredragon.

Heh, which is exactly why I'm glad I watch Canadian news, may not be hyped, but it's not all about what sells. Also not packed full of patriotism which I appreciate more than most people know .

HAHAHAHA, that's funny, she must love censorship though, unless that comment was regarding that she didn't watch television at all. I usually prefer to watch movies on Canadian stations, but then we get TBS and AMC which means we have tonnes of movies from the states to watch, as well American channels don't have that pesky rule about 70% plus Canadian content either, and while uncut and unedited American programs and movies are worth it up here, they are as rare as that 30 someodd percent allows them to be. Before that law was instilled I always found that when a movie or show was shown on an American channel it always ran anywhere from five to thirty mins less than the Canadian channels and comercials were accounted for .

Funny thing is, I may not like most of the programs I see on American stations, but they take up half of our available channels and they are still sometimes the best thing on, as well even if an American show like Stargate, Highlander or many of the other popular ones are filmed up here, they are shown on American channels anywhere from several months to as many as two years earlier than they are shown up here, so we of course end up watching American stations so we can keep up with the shows we like, go figure.

I am now beginning to understand why so many of my friends have started disconnecting their cable and started downloading series off of the programs that allow it, no commercials, no waiting, slightly lower quality but hey, who's to complain.

I think she was referring to the fact that Canadian television (at the time at least) was showing so darned much television from the U.S.

I gather that since then the CBC(?) has started showing more Canadian made shows... over, and over again.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* When I was a very wee child my favorite show was The Friendly Giant, syndicated from Canada.

Heh, I do have to make one clarification to my statements, occasionally Canadian television is edited, not for censorship, but for time slots, amusingly I discovered this on a channel that would never edit its movies but actually edited the show Red Dwarf which I only discovered because I was so into the show that I had mostly memorized the lines and had them on tape from a channel that didn't edit them as they were being shown as a marathon to raise money to have them shown regularily on said channel. The editing was done by an idiot who cut out some of the funniest parts, and unfinished jokes that made no sense the way he or she edited it, and they left in the stuff that you'd expect to be edited out, plus there was that little "this show has been edited to fit this time slot" bit at the beginning of the show, lol.