SYDNEY, Australia - Australian Prime Minister John Howard has offered a state funeral for the late zookeeper and TV entertainer Steve Irwin, better known as the "Crocodile Hunter". Irwin, 44, was killed yesterday by a stingray over Australia's Barrier Reef.

Irwin was a great admirer of Prime Minister Howard, whom he once described as "the greatest leader in the world." Around the same time, the Australian government paid Irwin $175,000 (Australian) for one day's filming for a 60-second quarantine advertisement.

"Not bad for a day's government work," Irwin said at the time.

Mr. Howard praised Irwin as the embodiment of the entrepreneurial, self-reliant Australian character. According to the editor of the Australian Guinness Book of Records, Mark Jones, Irwin had a unique career, in which he held the record as Human Being Most Annoying to Reptiles for twelve successive years.

A family friend of the Irwins told reporters: "Steve was annoying reptiles since he could crawl - poking snakes with sticks, lifting up rocks to disturb sleeping lizards, you name it." The same source said that it was typical of Irwin that he was always trying to extend his repertoire.

"For the last few years, Steve has been trying to get the record for Human Being Most Annoying to Marine Wildlife", a record on which the Japanese whaling industry has long had a stranglehold. Irwin came close to the record in 2004, when he was widely criticized for molesting whales, seals and penguins in Antarctica. An unnamed associate of Irwin said: "Steve must have been close to cracking the record for annoying marine wildlife. Only three people have ever been killed by stingrays, so he must have been really annoying it."

In 2004, Irwin was a runner-up for another record, Most Bizarre Act of Parenting, after he dangled his one-month old baby, Bob, over a crocodile enclosure, but, as always, he was beaten to this record by Michael Jackson.

Irwin's family have declined the offer of a state funeral, saying that the modest and retiring Crocodile Taunter would have preferred a quiet private ceremony. His remains will be fed to his crocodiles at the Beerwah reptile park known as Australia Zoo. As the family friend told one reporter: "After all the years of Steve annoying those crocodiles, it's only fair."

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Crocodile Hunter a great fan of anti-conservationist PM