The Crocodile Hunter Diaries - Steve Mourns The Death Of Mary (1998/2002)
Season 1 (2001-2002)
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Still to come in Croc Diaries, the great loss strikes the heart of Australia Zoo.
00:12Steve has been rescuing crocodiles since he was a boy.
00:15But no croc has been more special to him than Mary.
00:19She's a giant crocodile, a female being nearly 11 feet in length.
00:24Steve had never seen a bigger female croc.
00:28She was also very old, being over 100 years in age,
00:31she'd well outlived her average life expectancy of about 80 years.
00:36She was the big, beautiful matriarch of Australia Zoo.
00:41And as she got older, as all animals do, she began to suffer from her age.
00:47And today, Mary's time had come.
00:53This is easily one of the saddest days of my entire life.
00:57And on one of my routine crocodile checks,
00:59I noticed Mary in the same position as she was last night.
01:04And she rests here every night, and I see her every morning.
01:09But this morning was different.
01:13She didn't move.
01:15She didn't breathe.
01:18I don't want anyone coming in the Crocodile Environmental Park.
01:20So I made a decision to shut down the Crocodile Environmental Park.
01:25She was dead.
01:31The closest I've ever had to a crocodile friend in my life.
01:35Copy all cars, copy all cars.
01:37We're just shutting down the Environmental Park for a while.
01:41I took a bit of a risk,
01:44because she shared this territory with Agro and Cookie.
01:50But I was so sad,
01:53I threw caution to the wind without a second thought,
01:57to help my friend.
02:07Her eyes were shut.
02:09Her mouth was slightly ajar.
02:19She died in her sleep.
02:22The best way anyone could ever go.
02:38This is a really special friend of mine.
02:42Her name's Mary, and I caught her when she was over 100 years of age.
02:48She's one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen in my entire life.
02:53And I love her like I love my wife.
02:57I just love Mary so much.
03:04You know, my good friend, my best friend Wes,
03:09he was there with me when we caught her.
03:11We didn't want to catch her.
03:13We didn't want to catch her.
03:15And if we didn't, they would have killed her.
03:21And thanks, Wes.
03:24What we did was a decision we had to make.
03:28And we did it, and we caught her.
03:31And she has made a difference for crocodile conservation.
03:34The finest gift she ever could have given the world.
03:37And she's probably saved hundreds of thousands of crocodiles in this world.
03:42Come on.
03:44Come on, sweetheart.
03:47Come on.
03:50It's almost like Agro knew what we were doing.
03:56And gave us the space to do the job.
04:13Help.
04:16Hey, dear.
04:18Come here.
04:20We're going to need help.
04:27Me too.
04:37Here.
04:39Hey, Wes.
04:42I'm sorry.
04:52Oh, man.
05:02I'm sorry, man.
05:04Really sorry.
05:06But you know, she made a heck of a difference.
05:13Yeah.
05:17I don't think we'll pick her up.
05:23Come on, girl.
05:26Okay.
05:33Can you get that gate, Tony?
05:39Wes.
05:43Here?
05:45Yeah.
06:02It will never cease to amaze me
06:05why Agro or Cookie never came anywhere near us.
06:10They had every single opportunity
06:14to take me and Wes and Terry out.
06:18They knew what was going on with Mary.
06:21And I think her death is a gift to the world.
06:27A demonstration
06:31of how animals feel, think, show emotion.
06:36And they know exactly what's going on.
06:40Yeah, I don't know what to do.
06:42I want to put her somewhere where we can see her,
06:44where we can see her every day.
06:48People can see her, too.
06:50So she can continue to educate and help crocodiles forever.
06:56You bet.
07:00Yeah, where's that?
07:03Environmental Park.
07:08What a tough decision.
07:10Where am I going to bury her?
07:14It's got to be somewhere prominent,
07:17close to home.
07:19It's got to be somewhere where we can always remember her.