Croc Hunter Explains Crocodile-Baby Stunt

June 14, 2004 -- For Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter from Down Under, one of his closest calls came earlier this year, when he managed to narrowly escape a public relations disaster that threatened to swallow his career whole.

In January, the star of the Animal Planet series, The Crocodile Hunter, arrived at his Australia Zoo in Queensland, holding his one-month-old son, Bobby, and appeared to tempt fate as he hand-fed a 13-foot-long crocodile a dead chicken. Footage of the incident sparked international outrage.

"I don't think there's a person alive who didn't see it, it was like every half hour on the half hour, [thinking] 'how could someone do this?'" said Irwin, who grew up rescuing crocodiles.

In an interview with Good Morning America six months after the incident, Irwin said the camera angle made the stunt look far more dangerous than it really was.

"The camera angle is what we call 'stacked,'" Irwin said. "So if I'm feeding a crocodile here and you shoot it from the side there, you can see the distance that I am from the crocodile easily, because the camera is shooting from [the side]."

But the photographer shot the feeding from behind the crocodile, rather than from the side.

"You shoot back across the croc, the croc looks like it's all over me," Irwin said.

A Jackson Parallel?

Irwin scoffed at the comparison made by people who wrote letters to the show, likening the crocodile hunter to pop star Michael Jackson when he dangled his baby over a hotel balcony in Berlin in 2002.

"Michael Jackson's a singer, you know, and I don't know why a singer would do that," said Irwin. "You know, I've raised my daughter exactly the same way," Irwin said.He said that when his daughter was a month old, the same age as Bobby, he fed crocodiles while holding her in his arms, too.

"That's right, mate," he said. "You know, right in with the same croc, not once — a thousand times!"