Quotes

I didn't know Steve Irwin, personally, but the remarkable thing about his death was that it wasn't just a one in a million accident, it was one in a billion. I've studied all the books and the chances of being stung in the heart like that are incredibly small. It could not happen again. It was the ultimate freak accident. Steve was a great advocate of wildlife conservation and he would be sad if his death put off anyone from getting involved with the natural world, as would his family.

It's a mistake to be negative when it comes to conservation. If someone like me was to be negative, then people pick up on that and they assume it's all buggered, so where's the impetus to make a change?

I'm realistic - the shelf life for someone in TV is limited. There are hundreds of places I'd still like to go. I want to go to Antarctica, that's my big goal. I want to film leopard seals there and just want to experience the landscape.

I was brought up on a smallholding surrounded by woodland and my earliest memories are of catching lizards and beetles. I was lucky my parents encouraged that and I've been doing it ever since. I started as a travel guide writer and thought it was time to take a risk and see what happened. I bought a video camera, went to Colombia, wandered around the rainforest and filmed spiders and other animals. I sold it to National Geographic, which is how my TV career started.

We learn so much more from our failures than we do from our successes. All of the things that I have learned that are most valuable to me are from messing up from just absolute disasters that I've had along the way, and it forces you to think, "what did I do wrong and how could I improve on it?"

I think a lot of success in my realm is about control. People might look at me hanging off a frozen waterfall by my ice axe or swimming alongside a great white shark, catching a venomous snake and think that I am a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie, a risk taker, it's the exact opposite. It's about having enough control over yourself and your life and the things around you that you can make the apparently dangerous safe.