(AU) Bindi orders furry merchandise off zoo shelves (fwd)

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Bindi orders furry merchandise off zoo shelves

 

April 23, 2007 - 6:41AM

 

Bindi Irwin has joined the anti-fur campaign, instructing Australia Zoo

to take a drink holder covered in fake fur off its shop shelves because

it sent out the wrong message.

 

The eight-year-old daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin,

believes it is important to carry on her father's conservation message,

her mother Terri Irwin said.

 

" Last night she came to me with a drink holder from the shop here at the

zoo, " Mrs Irwin told /The Mail on Sunday's/ You magazine.

 

" It was covered in fake fur.

 

" She said she didn't think we should sell it because it gave the message

that fur was OK, even if it was fake. And it's not OK.

 

" She didn't think Steve would like it.

 

" Bindi had a meeting with the director of merchandising this morning and

now it's off the shelves. "

 

Mrs Irwin said the fact Bindi had grown up at the zoo north of Brisbane

had helped her daughter cope with the death of her father, who was

killed when a stingray barb pierced his chest last September.

 

" You can imagine that with 1000 animals, things are being born and dying

all the time, " Mrs Irwin told the magazine.

 

" We have a wildlife hospital right here. Little animals come in and they

don't always make it.

 

" Bindi saw that and developed a healthy understanding that life is one

part of what it's all about. And then you die and you go on to the next

part. "

 

It had been harder for Bindi's three-year-old brother, Robert, to

understand his father's death.

 

" Robert has had a much more difficult time and I attribute that to the

lack of knowledge about death ... there's a lot of explaining, " Mrs

Irwin said.

 

Bindi will make her US television debut in June when she stars in a new

television series, Bindi the Jungle Girl, on the Discovery Kids channel.

 

AAP

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