Robert Irwin is following his father Steve’s “incredible example”.<\/p>\n
The conservationist died in 2006, aged 44, after being pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray barb while snorkelling in Queensland, Australia.<\/p>\n
His son Robert was only two when Steve passed away, but has ensured he remembers his dad’s legacy since then.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Australia’s Stellar magazine, Robert said: “He lived at this level that was 100 per cent. He only got 44 years to live, like, 10 lifetimes, really – what an incredible example for me to follow.<\/p>\n
“Time is fleeting. I don’t know if I’ve got 20 years, 80 years. No-one knows. So you might as well just do it all, and do it now, and have fun.”<\/p>\n
Robert is about to make history as the youngest-ever host of Australia’s Logie awards, and also hosts US TV show Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro.<\/p>\n
But throughout his career, the 22-year-old has done his best to remember that everything leads back to Australia Zoo, which his family founded in 1991.<\/p>\n
He added: “Wherever I go, all roads lead to Australia Zoo, they all lead back home \u2014 that’s where it all stems from, truly. This legacy that Dad created, it’s crazy to say, but I think it’s just getting started.”<\/p>\n
“He’s not here to spread those messages, but now it’s my turn [and] my sister, my little niece, Grace, she’s coming up quick,. It’s the next generation’s turn to keep that going, and that’s a real privilege.”<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Robert said in an interview on the Something to Talk About podcast that he’s fed up with the media “villainizing” his mum Terri.<\/p>\n
He recalled a moment when he was 16 when he was photographed looking upset while getting off a flight, after his beloved family pet – a chicken called Piggy – had died.<\/p>\n
He said: “I got off the plane and there was a bunch of cameras taking photos of me. I was absolutely cut up. I looked obviously very sad and then the reports come out: ‘Oh, there’s a family rift between Robert and his sister,’ or ‘Robert’s mum is doing this.’<\/p>\n
“They always villainize my mum for some reason\u2026 Don’t start creating some sort of family drama just because my pet chicken died. That’s the only thing that sort of gets a little bit frustrating.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Irwin is following his father Steve’s “incredible example”. The conservationist died in 2006, aged 44, after being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[273],"tags":[1128,62740,18,19,17,48656,133,461],"class_list":["post-635933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-australia","tag-australia-zoo","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-robert-irwin","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117091023159541041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}