Bob Irwin - Personal Life

Personal Life

Bob Irwin married Lyn, a maternity nurse who died in a single automobile accident in 2000. Together, they have a daughter, Joy, son Steve (who died in 2006), and second daughter, Mandy. Although Irwin was officially a plumber, and Lyn a maternity nurse, the family's consuming passion was rescuing and rehabilitating local wildlife. Steve Irwin, the couple's middle child, would not only come to fulfill the roles of curator and director of the Beerwah Reptile Park, but also produce and star in his highly popular educational documentary series, The Crocodile Hunter. Steve would enlarge the park to its present size of 72 acres (29 ha) and rename the park the Australia Zoo.

Steve Irwin wrote on his website

What a childhood! My mum was the Mother Teresa of wildlife rehabilitation. Our house was a giant maternity ward fair smack-dab in the middle of the Beerwah Reptile Park. It was nothing for us kids to be sharing our house with orphaned joey kangaroos, sugar gliders, ringtail or brushtail possums, koala joeys, baby birds and untold amounts of other injured Australian animals. What a wild menagerie, and an exceptional household to be raised in.

Steve Irwin died in 2006. While filming a documentary, he swam too close to a stingray, which stung him. The barb pierced his heart, and Steve died of blood loss and cardiac arrest.

Bob has since remarried to Judy, and was Queensland's Grandfather of the Year in 2008. Bob and Judy live on a rural property near Kingaroy, from where Bob continues to campaign for wildlife and environmental conservation.