Like father, like daughter: Bindi Irwin steps in her father's shoes

Seems like daughter of the crocodile hunter is following her father’s footsteps. Bindi Irwin, 8, has stepped in the shoes of Steve Irwin and is all set to star in a wildlife series to be aired on the Discovery Kids network in January 2007.

This is not Bindi’s first stint with television as the young girl savored stardom at quite an early age. She made her first small screen appearance on the ‘Rosie O’Donnell’ show in 1999, when she was barely 1 year old. She was even seen in her father’s television shows including ‘Crocodile Hunter Diaries’.

In 2002, she bagged herself a role in ‘The Wiggles’. More recently, Bindi appeared on the cover of the Australian magazine ‘New Idea’, and is the youngest person to do so in the magazine's 104-year history.

Besides Bindi, the superhero has left behind his wife Terri and 2 year old son, Bob.

The 26-episode series 'Bindi, The Jungle Girl' is in the infancy of production and was originally "going to be a father-daughter thing, starring the nature-loving duo”, Discovery publicist Annie Howell said on Monday. "Steve and Bindi were very enthusiastic about doing the show together."

However, it is known that the adventurous father-daughter duo will be seen together in the scenes filmed before Steve’s death.

"Some people think that I would be afraid of them, but I'm never ever afraid of an animal," Bindi said in an interview yesterday on ABC's ‘Australian Story’.

"I just get excited and some that are dangerous I just think, `Oooh! What's going to happen?' and things like that."

Insiders say that Bindi will carry on her late father’s conservation and television shows. Steve Irwin had elucidated the fact earlier that he backed up Bindi’s rise to eminence, claiming "I just want to be co-star to my daughter."

Her father, animal lover and conservationist Steve Irwin, nicknamed as ‘The Crocodile Hunter’, was an Australian environmentalist and eminent television personality. He received accolades with his television series ‘The Crocodile Hunter’, a wildlife documentary co-hosted with his wife Terri Irwin. Together with his wife, he also co-owned and operated Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Queensland, founded by his parents.

While filming his own documentary ‘The Ocean's Deadliest’, Steve was jabbed by a poisonous stingray on September 4, 2006.

According to his friend and colleague, John Stainton, “He swam too close to one of the animals, an ordinarily harmless stingray”. "He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat the ‘Croc One’.

Shaped by Steve’s ideologies, Bindi seems to be carrying her Father’s legacy forward. At her father's public memorial service on September 20, 2006, the little girl read the following speech prepared by herself: