Those who only knew “Crocodile Hunter†Steve Irwin from TV may forget that he was always involved in serious wildlife research. Just yesterday, a research paper was published listing Irwin as one of the authors. It involves the homing instincts of crocodiles. The short version is: you can take a crocodile as far as hundreds of miles away from its home, and he will find his way back. As Coturnix observes:
Link to story. Link to research paper.
Can you imagine anyone doing this work without Steve Irwin? Who else would be able to grab a big croc, attach a satellite tracker, load it and unload it some hundreds of miles away, then follow their movements on the computer screen? Would you dare ask your grad students to do that?
Link to story. Link to research paper.
As for other scientists not daring to do this experiment, is tracking big dangerous reptiles not part of what herpetologists do? Speaking as a grad student, I'd rather collar a croc than teach another English 101 course containing 45 hostile students who've never written anything more complicated than a five-paragraph essay. The animal behaviorists get to use tranquilizer guns. ;-)