Career
Irwin was a successful plumber from Melbourne who, in addition, had also spent time building sheds and houses. Bob Irwin's career in animal conservation officially began in 1970, when Irwin moved his family from Essendon, located west of Melbourne, Australia, to Queensland.
Irwin had decided to turn his love for animals from a hobby into a career and purchased 4 acres (16,000 m2) of land to construct a wildlife refuge. As a builder, Irwin personally turned his hand to building and designing the Beerwah Reptile Park. Irwin dedicated so much time to constructing the Reptile Park and the enclosures that, for the first years in their new life of exhibiting native fauna, the Irwins lived in an old RV caravan. Irwin would build a shed, and then the Irwin house, which the Irwin family and Bob Irwin lived in until Bob gave the wildlife park to son, Steve Irwin.
"The family home was itself a mini zoo and wildlife hospital," said son, Steve Irwin, on his website, "With makeshift marsupial 'pouches' slung over the backs of chairs and snakes stashed everywhere. Later, the park would be significantly expanded to cover 72 acres (29 ha)."
Read more about this topic: Bob Irwin
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)