BEERWAH, Australia -- Steve Irwin ...

BEERWAH, Australia -- Steve Irwin ventureed a poisonous stingray barb from his chest in his dying forces his longtime manager said Tuesday, after watching video of the attack that killed the "Crocodile Hunter"

Irwin's material part was returned home to Beerwah, a hamlet forward the fringe of the Outback where he lived with his wife and couple young children. Irwin turned a virtuous reptile park opened by his parents into Australia Zoo a wildlife keep that has become an international tourist attraction.

centurys placed bouquets and handwritten notes at an ad hoc shrine to the 44-year-old naturalist outside the park, and other tributes flowed in from Canberra to Hollywood

Thedetails of Irwin's death Monday as he was shooting a program onward the Great Barrier Reef were disclosed at John Stainton, his manager and friend. He said he had viewed the video showing the TV star pulling the barb from his chest.

"It displays that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up and spiked him here [in the chest], and he shakeed it out, and the nearest minute he's gone," Stainton said.

"It's a true hard thing to watch, because you are actually witnessing a person of consequence die, and it's terrible," he said.

POLICE: HE WASN'T THREATENING

State police Superintendent Michael Keating said Irwin was "interacting" with the stingray when it flicked its tail and speared his chest with the bone-hard serrated spine it bore -- the normally placid animal's main defense mechanism.

"There is no evidence Mr Irwin was threatening or intimidating the stingray," Keating said, addressing speculation that a man who became famous by the agency of leaping on crocodiles must have been too shut for the animal's comfort.

Irwin's boundles capacity of work and daredevil antics around deadly beasts made him a household name forward the Discovery Channel's "The Crocodile Hunter" with a reported audience of more than 200 million.

Australia's leaders interrupted parliamentary business to eulogize Irwin. "He was a genuine, one-off remarkable Australian individual and I am distressed at his death," Prime Minister John Howard said.

Friend and Oscar-winner Russell Crowe said from recent York: "He was and remains the ultimate wildlife warrior."

on the contrary famous feminist and fellow Australian Germaine Greer blasted Irwin, saying in a British newspaper, "The animal world has finally taken its requital on Irwin."

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