Robert Irwin is a typical 14-year-old teenage boy who enjoys mountain biking and photography.
He also lives in a giant zoo.
Robert, the son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” star Steve Irwin, is now taking center stage in “Crikey! It’s the Irwins,” a new series on Animal Planet also featuring his mother, Terri, and his older sister, Bindi.
“We’ve worked on quite a few different TV projects, but this is actually the first time my whole family together is coming back to Animal Planet, so it’s really exciting,” says Irwin, whose previous series include Discovery Kids’ “Wild but True” (2014) and Britain’s “Ten Deadliest Snakes” (2015). But this marks his first time on Animal Planet with his family.
Premiering Sunday at 8 p.m., “Crikey!” follows the Irwins as they run the 100-acre Australia Zoo, founded by Steve Irwin’s parents. Steve owned and ran the zoo prior to his death in 2006 (he was killed by a short-tail stingray while filming a documentary in waters off the Australian coast).
Robert says it wasn’t hard adjusting to the Animal Planet camera crew.
“We’ve always grown up in front of a camera. Bindi and I were actually both literally filmed being born, for some of the original ‘Crocodile Hunter’ documentary,” he says. “I think it’s really a great position that we’re in, because we’re able to reach a large audience and hopefully inspire people to join in on the wildlife conservation work that we do.”
“The Crocodile Hunter” ran over a decade, from 1996-2007, with spin-off shows such as “Croc Files” (1999-2001) and “The Crocodile Hunter Diaries” (1998-2002). Robert, who was just shy of 3 years old when Steve died, says he remembers his father a bit. Videos help with the rest.
“I’m very lucky in the way that I’ve had so much of my life captured on camera, so really as the memories you have of Dad start to fade, you can always look back at the old footage and relive those special moments,” he says. “At Australia Zoo, you can certainly feel his presence. That was Dad’s favorite place in the world. He literally built the zoo.”
“Crikey! It’s the Irwins” has archival footage of Steve in each episode. The climax of the premiere involves Robert leading the “Croc Show” at the zoo’s “Crocoseum,” a 5,500-seat stadium Steve built to perform crocodile demonstrations and educate visitors about crocodile behavior.
“It takes many years to learn how to do this,” Robert says about leading the crocodile feeding. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. In the show you’ll see a lot of the flashback footage of Dad feeding the same crocodile, Graham, in the Crocoseum. And you’ll get to see me doing the same thing. It was one of the most exciting and special moments of my entire life.”
Of course, running a zoo doesn’t leave much time for school, so Robert participates in Distance Education, a program similar to homeschooling.
“School can be difficult to fit in,” he says. “But I’ve actually got a classroom that’s set up at Australia Zoo and a teacher that travels with us wherever we go, so I can fit in all of my studies and do it via correspondent online.”
He says it’s his ambition to one day run the zoo. But, for now, he’s taking the time to learn it all.
“Since I’m still quite young, I’m really learning as much as I can about all of the animals and all of the work at Australia Zoo,” he says. “I really do feel very honored to be following in Dad’s footsteps and continuing that legacy that he had. He was the original wildlife warrior.
“I absolutely love continuing that work.”