SciTeacher said:
the guy was really asking for it. If you pick at and tease wild animals long enough, one is bound to make you pay for it. I've found it hard to convince my students that some of the things these guys do is just wrong. They see him and guys like Jeff Corwin grab every thing that moves and they think it's cool. They don't understand that a lot of these things are staged...Then little Johnny sees the Rattlesnake or Copperhead, remembers the Croc Hunter, tries to catch it and ends up in the hospital.
Isn't fly fishing, at its very core, picking up and teasing wild animals?
Guys like Irwin show possibilities to lots of kids who may never have even thought about wildlife. The guy was pretty much textbook ADHD, his hyperfocused skill was pursuit and capture of wild-animals. I like watching excellence, and when it came to doing what he was good at, the guy had it in spades. He said what he thought and most of it was about crocs and snakes, how cool is that? There's something about excellence that is infectious, he was top of his field, I respect that. I grew up in Australia and I learned more about the fauna and flora watching Irwin than I did reading books or trying to catch snakes.
At the very least, I sort of know how to wrestle a croc- you need duct tape, some rope, torches, a tinny with a 15hp outboard, a long pole, a pair of blunnies, and three big fellas named either Davo, Johnno, Wayne or Kevin.
I have taken some of this into account when dealing with methheads.