Police say Irwin didn't provoke stingray

Signed Steve Irwin shirts hang above a shrine at his Australia Zoo in Queensland. Bradley Kanaris / Getty Images

SYDNEY - Australian police have scotched speculation that Steve Irwin was in any way responsible for his own death, insisting yesterday that he did not intimidate or provoke the stingray that speared him in the heart.

Marine biologists and other experts had said an unprovoked attack by a ray was highly unlikely, but it emerged that it was extraordinary bad luck, rather than a prod or a poke, that caused the death of the Crocodile Hunter.

Film footage of Irwin's last moments alive showed him pulling the serrated stingray barb out of his chest.

"There is no evidence that Mr Irwin was intimidating or threatening the stingray," said Superintendent Mike Keating of Queensland, who viewed the film of Irwin snorkelling in shallow water off the Low Isles, near Port Douglas.

"My advice is that he was observing the stingray."

Police will prepare a report for the Queensland state coroner.

"We'll be continuing to use that video in our investigation and we look forward to finalising the investigation very quickly," Mr Keating said.

Irwin, 44, whose irrepressible enthusiasm, safari suits and crocodile-wrestling antics made him an international star, was filming for a new series when he was killed on Monday.

He was snorkelling about 1m above a large bull ray, probably weighing around 100kg, when it lashed out, piercing his chest with the venomous barb on its tail.

The coronial report will try to establish whether Irwin died from the venom, the puncture wound close to his heart, or a combination of the two.

Watching the footage of Irwin's last moments was deeply distressing, said his producer and close friend, John Stainton.

"It's shocking. It's a very hard thing to watch because you're actually witnessing somebody die and it's terrible," Mr Stainton said.

"Steve came over the top of the ray and then the tail came up and spiked him. He pulled it out and the next minute he's gone."

Moments after extracting the barb from his chest, Irwin lost consciousness.

"That was it. The cameraman had to shut down," said Mr Stainton, who was aboard Irwin's vessel, Croc One, when the accident happened.

Irwin had lived life on the edge and had had some close shaves with crocodiles, snakes and other deadly creatures.

"He always pushed himself to the very limits but I thought he was invulnerable and I think he did, too," Mr Stainton said.

"I would never imagine it to come from something like a stingray.

"There's been a million occasions where both of us held our breath and thought we were lucky to get out of that one. But he just seemed to have a charmed life."

Irwin's wife, Terri, abandoned a hiking trip in Tasmania and flew to the family home on the Sunshine Coast with her children, 8-year-old Bindi and 2-year-old Bob.

NZ's last fatal stingray attack recalled 70 years later

New Zealand has had at least one fatal stingray attack, but it was almost 70 years ago.

Auckland woman Beverly Laing still has the original Herald report of the coroner's inquest into the death of her husband's cousin in December, 1938.

Eighteen-year-old Jessie Merle Laing was wading in shallow water near Te Mata on the Thames Coast when her fiance Frederick Banfield heard her cry out.

He turned to see her running towards him, then she collapsed.

Mr Banfield thought he saw a fin in the water as he pulled Jessie out.

He flagged a passing truck to take the couple to Thames Hospital but she did not survive.

It was unclear at the time whether Jessie stood on the animal but at a coroner's inquest a wound was described in her chest, 6cm long and 2.5cm wide.

New Zealand is home to the world's "heavyweight" stingray but marine scientists insist the animals are one of the gentle giants of the sea.

The world's largest marine stingray is the short-tailed ray, a common enough sight for divers around the New Zealand coast. It has a wingspan of up to 2m and grows up to 4m in length.

Other rays include the long-tailed stingray, which is almost as big, and the eagle ray which is smaller, about 1m.

Professor John Montgomery of Auckland University regularly swims with stingrays in the course of research, particularly in the Poor Knights marine reserve off the Northland coast.

"I am reasonably timid and wouldn't knowingly enter the water if I thought it was dangerous," he said. "You can be swimming with up to 80 of them within sight. It's just important to remember not to get over the top of them or frighten them."

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa collection manager of fish Andrew Stewart said the short-tailed ray was the "world heavyweight" of rays that could initially give divers a bit of a fright.

"But once I realise what it is, I just sit back and enjoy watching the beautiful creatures."

- Anne Beston, NZPA