Professor Steve Irwin
September 20, 2006 by staralicious
Filed under Steve Irwin
Steve Irwin was about to be made an adjunct university professor in honour of his scientific research when he died, a colleague said today.
Professor Craig Franklin, from the University of Queensland’s School of Integrative Biology, today said Irwin “had all the qualities of a great scientist” despite never being formally trained.
“He was driven by curiosity and he had an endless list of questions that he sought answers to,” Prof Franklin said at Irwin’s memorial service at Australia Zoo, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“In fact in recognition of his standing and contribution to science, the University of Queensland was about to appoint him as an adjunct professor – Professor Steve Irwin.”
Irwin, 44, was killed when he was struck in the chest with a stingray’s barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef on September 4.
Prof Franklin worked with Irwin as part of the “Crocs in Space” crocodile satellite tracking project set up in Queensland four years ago.
The team’s discoveries forced scientists to rethink theories about how the reptiles live.
They included the fact that large male crocs were not “king of the river system” but were instead social creatures.
“In one waterhole we found that we had big monster crocs all living together and sharing that area,” Mr Irwin told reporters at Australia Zoo in August 2004.
Research also discovered crocs were capable of travelling up to 15km between water holes and did not necessarily hang around their favourite site.
Irwin described Crocs in Space as “the most challenging crocodile research project in history” which would “change some history forever”.
“Isn’t it amazing that until now, the scientific world has never known how long crocodiles have dived for and at what depth?” he wrote in a blog on a website, which detailed work carried out on his crocodile research vessel Croc One. [Source]
[tags]steve irwin, crocodile hunter, professor[/tags]
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