Steve Irwin sometimes scares me. He had one 'Crocodile Hunter' episode where he went to Africa to pester various venemous things. He rolls up in a village and runs into a hut that has a Black Mamba in it, to catch it. He chasing after Black and Green Mambas (up into the trees with them), a HUGE Puff Adder, and these nasty large scorpions.
You can always tell the creatures that even the crazy pros like Irwin, O'Shea and the others fear viscerally ... they start sweating and their patter becomes stilted and unfocused. With snakes, that always happens when they come accross the mambas, King Cobras, Austrailian brown/fierce snakes and big rock pythons. They're the mankillers.
My pal told me that it is customary for the locals to get a shotgun and just blow away the mambas whenever they are encountered. Nobody wants to mess with them, even though they are generally shy creatures and hustle into hiding at the approach of humans. Puff adders kill more humans, because they are like rattlers without the rattle ... they rely on camoflauge, sit on the ground, and people step on them and get tagged. But its the mambas the locals fear in a primal way.
You aren't the only one he scares. I think he's just plain stupid for risking his sons life.
"Irwin held his baby son Bob under one arm while he fed a 13-foot (4-meter) crocodile named Murray with a dead chicken. Irwin later walked the baby inside the crocodile's enclosure as crowds looked on."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/01/02/australia.crocodileman/