He was never charged with any breach of safety regulations.Irwin said: “Some people ask, ‘What if you had fallen over?’ Yes, well, I could fall over right now. But what would have to happen for that event to take place would be a meteorite would come out of the sky, hit Australia, we would have an earthquake, 6.6 on the Richter scale, just like Iran, and then I would fall over. I think my path would always have gone back to or delivered me to wildlife.” Visitors came in droves to Australia Zoo to watch Irwin hover perilously close to untethered crocodiles, often leaping on to their backs. A theme park famous around the world, it has more than 1,000 animals on 60 acres of bushland and 360 employees, many of whom were in mourning yesterday.Irwin told the ABC documentary: “I’ve got animals so genetically inside me that there’s no way I could actually be anything else. By the time Irwin was nine, he was catching crocodiles, and in his twenties he did work for the Queensland government as a crocodile trapper, removing problem animals from populated areas.In 1991, when his parents retired, he took over the park – originally called the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, and now known as Australia Zoo – and developed it into a major tourist attraction. “A lot of people who now want to study biology and work with animals may not have considered it before they watched him on television,” Mr O’Shea said.Animals were in Irwin’s blood. When he was eight, his father, Bob, a plumber with a passion for reptiles, moved the family from Melbourne to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, where they opened a small wildlife park.

Although some “university professors” might turn their nose up at the way he portrayed reptiles, he had probably inspired many people to follow a career in conservation. He not only captivated Australia and all the visitors there, but he captivated America because he was audacious.”Mark O’Shea, a British reptile expert who presented the Channel 4 series, O’Shea’s Dangerous Reptiles, said that Irwin’s death would leave “an immense hole”. David Bellamy, another showman, admitted that he wept when he heard the news. “He was magic, and for the world of conservation and natural history, to lose him is very, very sad,” he said.

“The thing with Steve was he mixed damn good science with showbusiness and I don’t know anyone else who did that.” Dr Bellamy told the BBC that Irwin “did take enormous risks but he knew what he was doing… You know, is it a cultural cringe? Is it, they actually see a little bit of themselves when they see me, and they find that a little bit embarrassing?”Irwin was a naturalist as well as an entertainer, a fact that was reflected in the many tributes from leading figures in the field yesterday. Around the world, he said: “They’re looking at me as this very popular, wildlife warrior Australian bloke. And yet back here in my own country, some people find me a little bit embarrassing… They kind of cringe, you know, ’cause I’m coming out with, ‘Crikey’ and, ‘Look at this beauty’… In an Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary in 2003, he tried to analyse those feelings.

It’s such a terrible loss.”While many Australians felt similarly bereft, the effervescent Irwin provoked mixed feelings at home. Like Rolf Harris and Kylie Minogue, he was not taken entirely seriously in Australia, and appeared to be more valued abroad. There were groans in some quarters when he was chosen earlier this year to front a major campaign to promote Australia in the US, called “G’day, LA”. Urban Aussies want to shake off the image embodied by the brash, blond Irwin, and to have their modern, multicultural nation portrayed overseas in a rather more sophisticated fashion.Despite his chirpy, knockabout public persona, Irwin was no fool, and he recognised the ambivalence that he inspired. He said: “I really do feel Australia has lost a wonderful and colourful son.” Irwin “took risks, he enjoyed life”, Mr Howard said, “he brought immense joy to millions of people, particularly to children He was a wonderful character He was a passionate environmentalist. Irwin once observed: “You’re far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building.” With his thick drawl, his trademark cry of “Crikey!” and his perennial get-up of khaki shorts and shirt, long socks and heavy boots, Irwin fulfilled every clich?f the Australian Outback bloke.