NYT Op-ed “Appreciates” Steve Irwin

In the Opinion piece,  Appreciations: "Crikey", in The New York Times this morning (09/06/06), Lawrence Downes appreciates Steve Irwin’s work.

Now, I’ve received calls and e-mails calling my post harsh, so let’s get one thing clear: A woman lost her husband, and her two small children lost their father, and that’s tragic no matter how it happened.

But as for appreciating his work, I have two visceral reactions to Mr. Downes’ opinion.

1)  He looks at Irwin’s work through the eyes of a 6-year old boy he knows, and even compares Irwin’s approach to that of a young boy: "confront a wild animal, marvel at its strength and ferocity, and then try to hit it with a rock." Does Downes think that’s a productive approach?

"Future environmentalists and conservationists have to come from somewhere," writes Downes. Perhaps if Mr. Downes spent some time watching television coverage from South Florida of men of all ages impersonating Steve Irwin with alligators–and nearly every time the interaction is vicious and ends with the senseless death of the alligator–he’d see the other side of Irwin’s influence.

2) Downes notes that it’s easy:

to shake our heads at the relentless peddling of nature as TV entertainment, and to lament that the only animals people ever bother thinking about are either fuzzy-cute or man-eating. It is all too obvious that Mr. Irwin was no biologist, that exploring the world on cable TV is a lot different from actually plunging into it, that wild animals are really dangerous, blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah? Clearly, Mr. Downes doesn’t see the importance of anything in that paragraph, and dismisses it all. It’s easy to think about all those things because they immediately come to mind. As he himself says, "it’s obvious."

So . . . obvious things should be dismissed and not acted upon? Is that it?

I say, it’s obvious that something needs to be done about the fact that:

• nature is relentlessly being peddled
• the only animal animals people ever bother thinking about are the fuzzy-cute or man-eating
• wild animals are really dangerous

And here’s what you can do:

• don’t watch shows that relentlessly peddle nature (and I’m talking about where the lives of animals are interrupted by camera people, light people, sound people, trucks, and some man who is about to tackle them, etc… I’m not talking about Meerkat Manor.)
• start thinking about the animals that suffered for your palate, your clothes, and what you call "sport" or "entertainment"
• stay away from wildlife