Steve Irwin surveillance-crocodiles travel across oceans Before his death, legendary Aussie reptile-botherer Steve Irwin helped to plant tracking bugs on a large number of saltwater crocodiles. Boffins analysing data from the bugs now report that the crocs, despite being poor swimmers who mainly live in shallow estuarine waters, are capable of making long ocean voyages. A croc …
I guess they've been doing this for millions of years. Anthropologists have often wondered how man travelled between the various lands - perhaps they just saw the crocs heading over the horizon and thought they'd take a look too! The animals seem to have pretty good navigation skills to learn too!
He died because the barb of the stingray punctured his heart and he (irwin) removed it. As any sensible person knows, removing the object thats caused the puncture is sometimes the worst thing you can do! He died moments later.
Shame, i liked him, mad ozzie that he was..
Beer cos i raise my glass to his memory.
I heard, watched and read quite a lot about him before and after his death, he really pricked my interest. However, I'm not sure what practical alternative he had available to him when he'd just been stabbed through the heart by a living, wild animal in the ocean. I can't imagine the stingray would have been too happy to stay put for much longer and so would have undoubtedly pulled its tail clear and would've swum off.
At least The Reg got this story approximately right - unlike the Beeb at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10260382.stm
The Beeb seems to think that Crocs live somewhere near Chile / Tierra-del-Fuego, and that Sri-Lanka and Thailand are in the same region rather than the Indian Ocean and South China Sea
Quote
"They are poor swimmers and mainly live in salt water - but their "home" spans over 10,000sq km of the south-east Pacific, from Sri Lanka to Fiji and from Thailand to northern Australia. "
NB Expect the Beeb article to be amended soonish.
The point of my post was that crocs live in the Western mid pacific, South China Sea, and Indian Ocean - give or take the anonymous seas to the North of Australia.
Thailand and Sri-Lanka are Indian Ocean and/or South China Sea. Western Pacific includes Fiji and a bit of New Guinea / Melanesia.
None of which relates to 'South-East Pacific", which by my reckoning is Chile and Tierra-del-Fuego
IMHO, they were using the points as approximate latitude and longitude substitutes. As such Sri Lanka and Fiji point out relative longitude and Thailand and Northern Australia indicate latitude. I suppose the reasoning is that perhaps people can more easily visualize the range on a map with geographic names than they can with sets of coordinates.
"Little bugger bit me, jumped up, sunk his teeth right in!" (say it with a thick aussie accent with emphasis on 'right in' for best effect).
I miss the mental aussie poking poisonous reptiles with sticks for fun...
Cheers Mr Irwin! I raise a glass to you and Mr John Peel at least one a year. You are both missed.
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