CONSERVATIONIST AND ACTRESS AUSTRALIAEvery time we lose an animal species, it’s like losing a brick from the house. Pretty soon, the house just falls down.
—BINDI IRWIN
Bindi watched as the zoology students unrolled the long mesh tube along the river’s edge. They cut sticks and pounded them into the ground along each side of the fifteen-foot trap, anchoring it. Then they lifted the top edge and tied it to the sticks, forming a tunnel. Through the mesh at the entrance, they wove a rope, creating the drawstring, and then tied the other end to a sturdy tree. Finally, they set the bait a few feet inside the tunnel and scattered mud and leaves around the entrance.1
“All set,” a student called to Bindi’s father.
“Let’s check it,” he called back.
He turned to his five-year-old daughter. “You reckon this trap will work all right?”
Bindi nodded. She was so excited she could barely speak. She’d heard her mother and father talk about trapping crocs a million times, but this was the first time she got to go along.
She sure hoped they caught one. In fact, she hoped they caught all the crocodiles. They had a bunch to trap and move. It wasn’t safe here for the crocs anymore. In the old days, property owners would just shoot crocodiles that came on their land. But Bindi’s family had been rescuing and moving crocs to safety for years now—it’s what they did.
The trap worked! While they reset it, Bindi grabbed a sandwich. All this waiting for crocs was making her hungry.
“Here comes a big one!” yelled another student. Bindi could see an enormous female lumbering toward the trap—she was twice as big as Bindi’s father. Bindi thought she was beautiful, but she stayed quiet and didn’t move, so she wouldn’t scare the croc away.
The croc stuck her nose in the trap and sniffed the bait. Would she go in? Bindi worried. She held her breath . . .
The croc waddled farther into the tube . . . and . . .
Zzzzzept!
The students hauled on the rope and the entrance zipped closed. The giant croc thrashed, knocking down the sticks and collapsing the tube around her like a sleeping bag. Bindi clapped her hands—it had worked just how her father designed it, so the crocodile wouldn’t get hurt.
As they held the ropes tight, Bindi’s father wrestled the alligator and slipped a noose around her snout so she couldn’t bite.
“Bindi!” her father called, “I could use your help.”
She leaped up and ran to the group. “What can I do, Daddy?”
“I need someone to hold the tail while we load her in the truck. Can you do that?”
“Of course!” said Bindi, taking another bite of her sandwich.
“Can you eat your sandwich and hang on to that tail?” he asked with a grin.
Bindi stuffed the rest in her mouth. “Yeah,” she said, reaching through the mesh and grabbing the crocodile’s tail. It was warm and soft, just like her pet pythons at home.
Bindi smiled. She knew she would love crocodiles just as much as she loved her snakes. She could feel it.2
Bindi Sue Irwin was just five years old when she had her first wild-crocodile encounter, but protecting animals was something she was born into. In 1998, Bindi was born in Queensland, Australia. Her parents, Steve and Terri, were conservationists who ran the Australia Zoo together. Bindi was homeschooled with her younger brother and grew up at the zoo, surrounded by animals. She had her own pet Burmese pythons before she was two years old. “I really love snakes and crocodiles, but my favorite animal is my pet rat,” she said.3
Even Bindi’s name comes from animals. She was named for her dad’s favorite crocodile, Bindi, which is an Australian aboriginal word meaning “young girl.” Her middle name came from the family dog.
Bindi’s family always knew that the best way to protect and save animals is to educate humans. They wanted to educate as many people as possible, so her father starred in a popular nature show called The Crocodile Hunter. Bindi first appeared on his show when she was just a few weeks old.
Like her parents, Bindi wanted to be a conservationist too. She took care of animals at the zoo, helped her parents on crocodile rescue missions, and appeared on TV with her family. When she was just eight years old, she launched her own TV show, Bindi: The Jungle Girl. The show was set in a huge tree house, and in each episode, Bindi would teach kids about a different wild animal.
Later that year, the family suffered a terrible tragedy: Bindi’s father died after being stung by a stingray while snorkeling in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Bindi was devastated. Her father was famous around the world, and the world mourned his death along with her.
Five thousand people attended Steve’s memorial, including Australia’s prime minister, and three hundred million more watched it on television.4 Eight-year-old Bindi delivered a eulogy to the crowd that she wrote herself. In it, she said, “I don’t want Daddy’s passion to ever end. I want to help endangered wildlife just like he did. I had the best daddy in the whole world, and I will miss him every day.”5 The crowd gave her a standing ovation and a TV Week poll voted her speech “Television Moment of the Year.”6
From then on, young Bindi took over spreading her family’s message of conservation. In 2007, she starred in a TV documentary My Daddy the Crocodile Hunter, and she talked about animals and how to help them on dozens of talk shows, including Oprah, Ellen, Larry King Live, and Late Night with David Letterman. That year, she was also appointed Australia’s tourism ambassador.
Wildlife Warriors does research and helps animals around the world. There are projects to help crocodiles, Cambodian elephants, whales and nurse sharks, Tasmanian devils, black rhinoceros, Sumatran tigers, and cheetahs. Learn more about the important work Bindi’s group is doing and how you can help at WildlifeWarriors.com.
Bindi donates money from her earnings to Wildlife Warriors, an organization she cofounded with her parents. And Bindi has plenty of projects earning money for conservation. She did an exercise video called Bindi Kidfitness and designed Bindi Wear, an eco-friendly clothing line for kids. She performed with the popular Australian children’s band the Wiggles, hosted a game show called Bindi’s Bootcamp, and wrote a series of children’s books, Bindi Wildlife Adventures, based on her life growing up at the zoo. You can even buy a talking Bindi Irwin doll or her hip-hop album Trouble in the Jungle!
In recent years, Bindi has explored new passions. She starred in the movies Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove and Return to Nim’s Island. Both her characters were on missions to protect wildlife. And in 2014, Bindi competed on the popular TV show Dancing with the Stars—and won! How many girls can wrestle crocodiles and dance the rhumba?
Like her father, Bindi has been recognized for her many contributions. She won a Logie (Australian TV award) for Most Popular New Female Talent and was the youngest person ever to win a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series. She also won two Kids’ Choice Awards and a Biggest Greenie Award from Nickelodeon. And the one her father would be most proud of: Australian Geographic Society’s Young Conservationist of the Year in 2014.
Bindi is using her fame to help educate the next generation of conservationists. “I do not think of myself as a celebrity, but I do think I am a teacher,” she said. “It’s not about ‘look at me, I’m so great,’ I don’t think like that at all. It’s about getting people to take responsibility for keeping our animals safe and protected.”7
I think it’s so important to empower kids because we are the next voters. We are the next decision makers, and we are the next generation making a difference on our planet.
—BINDI IRWIN
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world as a marine biologist. I hope to bring awareness to many endangered sea creatures, like the blue whale. I want to make the world a better place for all animals of the oceans.
SOPHIA GARVEY 
AGE 13