I haven't had much time to do more than try to keep pace in this month's trivia game through the week, so this is my first chance to express my thoughts on the death of Steve Irwin.

While there's a tendency for some to claim he got his "just desserts", I see it differently. I enjoyed "The Crocodile Hunter". I found it highly educational and entertaining, and my children have pretty much grown up with it. Steve gave us an opportunity to see animals we should never even TRY to see in their natural environments. While Steve ran a zoo, he and others like him have done much to make zoos superfluous by exposing us to the world of nature outside our doorstep, and even, indeed, our continent.

His death was, in essence, a one-in-a-million shot, from everything I've heard. I've never been near a stingray, but I've seen film of people VERY close to these creatures, and handling them in every possible way. And even when the stingray lashed its tail, it's unlikely given Steve's vast experience with wild creatures that any blow that landed anywhere BUT right by the heart would have been a lethal blow. It was, in a way, "ludicrously tragic--like when a clown dies" (Homer Simpson).

For me and many others, Steve Irwin will be missed. But in his death, he taught a final lesson about nature we would all do well to heed. We should never, ever assume that we have enough expertise for wild creatures like this not to ppose a threat to us. Appropriately enough, I was contemplating this lesson, as the day before I heard about Steve's death, we saw a freshly dispatched rattlesnake on one of the caliche roads near us. Now, I have always wanted to take a stick and use it to see the snake strike after it was already dead, but my appreciation and respect for the power of these creatures prohibited me from doing so when I was confronted with the opportunity. Steve, and others like him, helped me to appreciate the magnificence of these creatures without the fear that comes from misunderstanding.

Steve, you will be missed.