So it was that the fatal incident that played out near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on September 4, 2006, was recorded. The story goes that filming for Irwin’s show Ocean’s Deadliest had been postponed due to bad weather, and so the conservationist had decided to film a segment involving stingrays for his daughter Bindi’s show Bindi the Jungle Girl.
Remembering that fateful day, John Stainton, a director and close friend of Irwin’s, told how he, Steve, and camera Justin Lyons were bored at their hotel and so headed out on a small boat to Batt Reef.
Stainton explained: “Suddenly, he expressed interest in encountering some typically harmless stingrays. It should have been an innocuous encounter for a children’s program.”