Emerald Diving: Steve Erwin's Death

About a year ago, I decided my next diving adventure was to be Tiger Beach in the Bahamas. I have had aspirations of open water diving with tiger sharks for a long time. In doing my research prior to the trip, I viewed videos of dive operators in the Tiger Beach area not merely attracting sharks, but engaging them. These engagements not only included hand feeding the sharks, but also grabbing the shark by the snout and invoking a comatose state by overstimulating the shark’s sensory organs embedded in the nose (ampullae of Lorenzini) . I never understood the point of these demonstrations, other than to put on a show for an audience. I view these type of antics as an invasion of the shark’s personal space and disrespectful to the shark - I didn’t want any part of it. I opted to go with a charter that attracted the sharks with scent, but did not feed or handle the sharks at all. I realized the likelihood of seeing tiger sharks with this charter was significantly less.

While on the trip to Tiger Beach, the Captain of our dive vessel made it very clear there was to be no touching of the sharks. It is a natural reaction for us humans to want to touch things we are in awe of as we are a very tactile species and touching adds to our sense of bonding. While videoing dives with six-gill sharks in the Pacific Northwest in 2004, I was looking through the viewfinder capturing wonderful video of an 11 foot shark when suddenly a diver’s arm enters the frame and runs along the shark’s back as the six-gill swims by. The shark did not react, but could have easily doubled back on the diver in an instant. Having a cartilage-based skeleton, sharks are extremely flexible and can turn around quickly within their own body-length.

On my Tiger Beach trip, we of course had one of our divers push the limits. No, he did not technically touch the shark as the Captain forbade. What he did was jam a Go-Pro camera mounted to the end of a six foot long pole in the face of several lemon sharks as they swam by in hopes of provoking the sharks to bight the camera – which two sharks did. It was unclear whether the sharks were biting the camera because they were agitated or used to being fed by other dive operators in a similar fashion (a fish on the end of the pole). Regardless, it was an invasion of the sharks personal space and disrespectful. If the shark was biting out of agitation, it may have ended up biting another diver. After a couple of dives, the Captain caught word of this divers actions and told him if he did it again, his trip was over. Kudos.

While at Tiger Beach, several of us were sitting around after dinner one night talking about this and others divers taking risks for the sake of sensationalism. It wasn’t long before the topic of Steve Irwin came up. I must say I have a lot of respect for Steve Irwin even though I do not agree with his aggressive techniques on man-handling some animals. Steve has used this “sensationalism” to bring tremendous awareness and education regarding the well-being and preservation of wildlife to the general public - probably more so than any other single person in history. I felt the Crocodile Hunter’s aggressive tactics served to capture the attention of audiences that need to be entertained in order to “tune in” and learn something.   In this sense, the Crocodile Hunter was a great showman in addition to a consummate conservationist. However, I think Steve Irwin would have been the first to admit his approach had substantial risks.

As everyone knows, Steve Irwin was “attacked” and killed by a massive stingray approximately 8’ wide. The lone cameraman in the water with Steve at the time of his death reported the stingray used the sharp knife-life barb on it tail to repeatedly stab Steve in the chest, puncturing his heart.
I always found this testimony very odd. I have been diving with dozens (if not hundreds) of stingrays and never seen one attack anything that wasn’t buried in the sand. Stingrays typically feed on small fish, crabs, clams, worms, and other mollusks and crustaceans buried in the sand. The “stinger” located about half way down the rays long, slender tail is only used in self-defense – typically against predators (like a shark) that try to attack the ray from the above. The stingray does not use it’s stinger to hunt. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people dive with stingrays every year and I have never heard of anyone being killed by a ray. But people are injured by rays every year.

Stingray related injuries typically occur one of two ways. The most common scenario is standing on the ray while wading through shallow waters. The other scenario is being impaled by the stinger when hauling in a desperate and flailing ray caught in a net or on a line that is fighting for its life. Neither of these scenarios apply to Steve Irwin’s situation. Steve was snorkeling with the ray in very shallow water. According to the cameraman, they were shooting a scene where Steve approaches the ray from behind, and then the ray swims off. The cameraman speculated as Steve swam over the stingray from behind, his shadow must have spooked the stingray. The stingray, thinking Steve was a predator like a tiger shark, rose up and repeatedly stabbed Steve in the chest with its stinger, then swam off. The cameraman kept the camera on the stingray as it swam off and did not know there was an issue until he panned back to Steve and noted a pool of blood surrounding the mortally wounded Crocodile Hunter.

Again, this testimony seemed odd to me. A stingray’s primary defense is camouflage. Being flat and sand-colored on top, they are often hard to spot. Ray’s will typically lay motionless on the bottom unless a perceived threats gets very close.   As the intent of the video shoot was to get the ray to swim away from Steve as he approached, my guess is Steve had to be right on top of the ray.   I am not saying it couldn’t happen, but I have never seen a stingray rise up from the sand to initiate an attack. If you have seen this, I’d be very interested to hear about it.

One of the passengers on our Tiger Beach trip was a very accomplished marine biologist and underwater photographer. He asserted what really happened was Steve swam up from behind the ray and physically grabbed the ray on either side. The ray then reacted the way a ray should – using it’s stinger in self-defense. If this is actually what happened, then I would reason Steve Irwin got what he deserved. He took a chance with a wild animal, provoked it, and unfortunately paid the ultimate price.   By not respecting any animal’s personal space, you stand the chance of injury or death – especially one with a +9” knife blade attached to its tail. Think about this: What would happened if you snuck up behind a large, strong, virile man walking down the street in New York City and aggressively grabbed him from behind? You would probably end up with a punch in the face.   And what if that man had knife in his hand when you grabbed him?   You would probably end up stabbed or cut.   Why do we expect animals to react more “humanely” than humans?

Steve’s death is an important lesson for all of us – a lesson that I hope does not get lost. Steve Irwin was possibly the most competent and accomplished “animal wrangler” of all time, and he eventually lost the gamble. Regardless if Steve grabbed the ray or not, he did not respect the animals personal space. We may never know the truth as the cameraman in the water with Steve at the time of his death has vowed to never release the video out of respect to Steve. The cynic in me says the video would incriminate Steve as the aggressor, and that would tarnish the “Steve Irwin” brand which is worth millions. Regardless, we should all take a lesson from Steve Irwin’s death. It was not a freak accident; it was not an animal attack; it was a man who took a risk provoking an animal in the wild and lost.   We would all do well to pay a bit more respect to wildlife.