Monday Mourning

I open the Yahoo! main page and - Crikey! Steve "Dances with Crocs" Irwin is dead...! Shanked in the chest by a stingray, no less. By now all of meatspace and cyberspace are afire with news of his passing. But no surprise here; many feel that his antics with animals too dangerous to even approach would eventually be his undoing.

Still, it is also the same infectious enthusiasm that has gotten people interested in wildlife conservation, and not just for his beloved crocodilian species. Lots of viewers, yours truly included, followed his adventures and misadventures with no small amount of trepidation, wondering when would the fatal encounter be. It's a tragic irony to be tagged by a stingray after so many close shaves with saltwater crocodiles and venomous snakes.

The late Crocodile Hunter joins a list of exceptional personalities whose pursuit of their passions led to their deaths. Among them are:

• Joseph Slowinski, a herpetologist, died in 2001 after being bitten by a krait in a rural area in Myanmar. The snake was brought to him in a sack; he'd reached into it without even a peek at the contents. Too far away from any medical facility, the bite eventually killed him.
• The Kraffts, Maurice and Katia, were a husband and wife team of volcanologists who were killed in 1991 by a pyroclastic flow at Mount Unzen in Japan, along with a number of journalists. The wave of hot ash and gases caught them completely off-guard.

Catch y'later, Stevo.