Terri Irwin will Continue Steve’s Ocean Battle

As an Australian, it was a sad day indeed when the news of Steve Irwin’s death filtered through to us all. And though for some of us (myself included) he was just that bit too loud to be truly loved, his loss was no less saddening or dramatic.

Let me for a moment though just take a small detour. The continual use of the Irwin’s as advertising funding for everything from tourism to new zoos is abhorrent. And whether it is the family doing it, or people doing it to the family, death should not be a cash cow.

Needless to say, it is good to see that Terri Irwin – Steve’s widow – is continuing on where Steve left off. This differs too from what I just said above, because this isn’t about cashing in on his legacy.

Speaking to Australia’s channel 9, one of our 3 major television networks, today, Terri Irwin announced a collaborative effort with Oregon State University to extend the whale watching program that she started in honor of her late husband in to a scientific research project.

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“We are working with Oregon State University to do formalized research in the southern hemisphere,” Terri Irwin said on Thursday. “We can actually learn everything the Japanese are learning with lethal research by using non-lethal research.”

Throughout the GO network we’ve spoken a lot on the fallacy behind Japan’s attempts to convince us that their “research” – which involves killing a thousand whales a year – is a valid method. The Greenpeace efforts of this past year and sheer logic conclude that the deaths of whales are simply not needed for any sort of research.

“We are determined to show the Japanese they can stop all whaling, not just humpbacks,” Irwin said.

We reported earlier this month that US based radical conservation group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, had renamed one of their vessels after Irwin. Terri had previously thrown her own support – which is not without merit on its own, considering the amount of work she has done for the environment – behind the group.

Thus, the Steve Irwin vessel is one of the several that are making its way to endeavor to stop the Japanese whaling fleet from doing too much damage to whale populations.

Further details though of Terri Irwin’s new scientific research are yet to be revealed.

AP via PhysOrg - Terri Irwin to Launch Whale Research

Photo Courtesy of AFP

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