Irwin fans urged to don khaki as family struggles with loss

Australia's grief over the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin continued yesterday with fans urged to wear khaki in his honour and his widow revealing anxiety about raising their two young children.

The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Kim Beazley, pledged to wear khaki trousers while the Premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, donned a khaki tie as part of a tribute dubbed Crikey, It's Khaki Friday.

A global chain email urged fans to wear "anything khaki ... in remembrance of a great man".

It was a message already taken to heart by the Network Seven commercial television station, which was accused of poor taste when one of its presenters, Naomi Robson, appeared on camera in a tight-fitting khaki shirt with a live lizard clamped to her shoulder, a day after Irwin's death.

Irwin, 44, who was fatally speared in the heart by a stingray barb while snorkelling in northern Queensland on Monday, was rarely seen out of his trademark safari shorts and short-sleeved khaki shirts, which he said were the most practical attire for wrestling crocodiles.

As a makeshift shrine of flowers, letters and signed khaki shirts grew outside Australia Zoo, the wildlife park he ran on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, his widow, Terri, told her mother of the trauma of losing her soulmate and the father of her two children, Bindi, 8, and 2-year-old Bob.

While Bindi had been a rock, Bob kept asking, "Where's Daddy?" according to Terri Irwin's mother.

"Robert says, 'Where's Daddy?' Bindi's been a big help to her. Bindi's been a rock. It's just a very hard time," Julie Raines, who lives in Oregon, said in an interview broadcast in the United States.

Terri Irwin, who met her husband in 1991 and filmed a wildlife documentary with him on their honeymoon a year later, has yet to speak publicly of his death.

Arrangements were being finalised for a private funeral after Irwin's family declined the Queensland Government offer of a state funeral, arguing the TV celebrity would have wanted to be remembered as an ordinary bloke.

The family has agreed that a public memorial service should be held sometime in the next two weeks.

Irwin's friend and producer, John Stainton, said thousands of people were expected to attend the memorial service, which may be held in Brisbane's 50,000-seat Suncorp sports stadium.

"You've seen what it's been like here," Mr Stainton said outside Australia Zoo, pointing to the thousands of tributes.

"It could really be anywhere between 5000 and 50,000."

Irwin's body is being kept at a funeral parlour at Caloundra, about 20km from the zoo.

Newspapers were preparing 25-page magazine tributes to the man they called a legendary Australian.

The Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, suggested a national park could be named after Irwin, while newspaper letter writers proposed an annual public holiday in his name, a monument or crocodile-shaped piggy banks in which children could make donations to conservation.

But some Australians felt the national outpouring of sorrow had spiralled out of control. One letter writer urged the media to stop its feeding frenzy and another described Irwin as an idiot whose catch-phrase "Crikey" was cringe-worthy.

More than A$500,000 ($591,807) in donations has been raised by fans for the conservation charity Irwin set up, Wildlife Warriors Worldwide.

Fund manager Michael Hornby said the charity was struggling to keep up with thousands of pledges.

Tributes to Irwin continued to be posted on websites and chatrooms.

One fan, writing on the Sydney Morning Herald website, said: "The stingray had an easy target - the man had a big heart."