When the news hit yesterday that international personality Steve Irwin had died, I was one of the many who were shocked. It is such with any tragic death that people do not realize how much a person meant until they are gone. “The Crocodile Hunter” leaves a legacy of television and also film. Irwin’s entertainment career includes what will be remembered as some of the most fascinating documentaries aired on animals. But Irwin himself will stand apart among celebrities because of the reason he became one.

What set Steve Irwin apart in television was his passion for a cause, and his bravery. When I first saw Steve Irwin on TV, he was chasing the world’s deadliest snakes. I was captivated by his courage and lighthearted personality. How many people can handle a deadly snake and take time to look at the camera and commentate? But I also learned something about snakes.

Perhaps it is because I am an American and rarely exposed to them, but I love seeing dangerous and exotic animals. What better place than Australia, with its great supply of strange creatures, to serve as the setting? Irwin wanted people to care about animals by seeing and understanding them. He fought, sometimes vigorously, against ignorant ideas about the animal world. He possessed a compassion for animals that reached the depths of his heart, as anyone who saw Irwin meet with a beached whale will remember. Because his heart ached for them, so did ours. Because he was excited about animals, we were too. Whether cuddly and cute or scaly and scary, he loved them all, and even if they were cold-blooded, we warmed up to them too. I like National Geographic, but I would take “The Crocodile Hunter” for my animal adventures any day.

Irwin’s mix entranced us. There were strange creatures, which will generally stop a channel surfer for at least a few seconds, but there was a charismatic (in his own way) host who was as interesting as the facts he was explaining. Irwin was the farthest thing from a dry, documentary commentator as there is. His excitement was contagious, and his bravery to handle creatures others would not dare go near was captivating. He took us right into the action, to the behavior of the creatures, and every now and then something would snap at him and he would show off his reflexes, always staying a step ahead of danger. The danger and tension, the thing he was hunting, his location and he himself made education so entertaining that Irwin became one-of-a-kind among channel choices.

It should not be forgotten that he was a zookeeper. He was not just a celebrity or a television personality. He was not a model or a sportscaster. He was a man doing what he loved, on camera. He was a husband and a father, a team leader with a career at a zoo, and it made him real to us. It was his life as well as his adventures that interested us. The news is pouring over with stories about how his employees loved him and about his work in animal protection and conservation.

He was not there for fame or for fortune, but rather for his message. He used courage, wrangling dangerous animals to get his voice lifted to the world. He risked injury and death at the hands of the animals he spoke for to protect them.

He did something for television history, and for everyone who learned something from him, that will not soon be forgotten.

“The Crocodile Hunter” will be missed for many years.