For most people who suffer the bereavement of a partner, having to deal with their grief is hard enough. When Terri Irwin’s husband Steve died, she not only lost her soulmate, but also her business partner and the face behind their family brand.

Suddenly in charge of their business – Australia Zoo – Terri had to adapt quickly to her role as attractions operator, at the same time as being a single mum of two and honouring Steve’s legacy. It’s a task most would find overwhelming. “When Steve died, I was scared, not only by the deep level of grief I was feeling, but also how I was going to cope with everything from a personal and business point of view,” Terri recalls.

Seven years on, Terri’s the same gentle, committed and self-deprecating personality she was then. Australia Zoo is thriving and the many conservation projects Steve and Terri set up together to protect wildlife all over the world are still regular beneficiaries of money raised by the Irwin family business. Terri’s also still busy with filming commitments, only now it’s her children Bindi and Robert who are the stars.

Land Down Under
American-born Terri Irwin was based in Eugene, Oregon running a wildlife rehabilitation organisation before she moved to Australia to be with Steve. In 1992, when they married, Steve’s parents retired from their family-owned attraction called the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, where Steve was also working, and the newlyweds were put in charge. “We didn’t break even at the park for the first few years,” admits Terri, who says the pair was so broke they couldn’t afford to buy the business from Steve’s parents, agreeing to pay them a wage for life instead.

When they took over the ownership of the park, it was four-acres and employed two full-time staff. Even then, and despite the fact they had little money, Terri says Steve had big plans for it. “He saw it as an opportunity to showcase and help all of the wildlife he was so passionate about,” she explains.

A month into marriage, Steve and Terri began filming footage of themselves in the Australian outback wrestling snakes and crocodiles and discovering wild animals. At the same time, Terri sold her business in Oregon, which bankrolled the purchase of another four acres of land for the wildlife park, which Steve and Terri renamed Australia Zoo.

While Steve was talented with wildlife and consummately practical – “he was a fitter, a joiner and could even mill his own timber” – it was Terri who had the larger marketing perspective. “The first time I wanted to send out a press release, Steve told me it wasn’t how things were done,” she remembers. “But I loved working with Steve – he always challenged me. He was the one with the vision. I would tell him we didn’t have any money but he’d build it anyway.”

Television career
To afford Steve’s grand plans, Terri thought it’d be a good idea to approach a production company to sell them Steve’s documentaries. They’d been filming for three years by this point and had hours of footage. Terri cringes as she recalls sitting in the office of Discovery Channel in her eighties-suit with padded shoulders (“the only one I had”) and being told by the board of tv executives that nobody would watch a documentary where Steve was in shot so much. “They didn’t like what we showed them of Steve with the animals. They told us wildlife programmes weren’t filmed like that – they needed 80 per cent animals, 20 per cent presenter. In ours, Steve was in every shot.”

Serendipitously, a new wildlife channel for tv called Animal Planet was just starting up at the time and signed their documentary instead. By the time Steve died, his tv series The Crocodile Hunter had 80 million viewers worldwide.

All money earned from the tv work was ploughed back into Australia Zoo. Steve was determined to make it the biggest and best wildlife conservation facility in the world, which meant he had to work even harder on his documentaries. “Every time Steve had a dream for a new project, he’d do more filming in order to fund it.”

They created a management team to help run the zoo, including Steve’s best mate Wes Mannion, who is zoo director, and general manager Frank Muscillo, who’s married to Steve’s older sister. In 2004, the Irwins opened an Australian wildlife hospital next to the zoo to rehabilitate injured or endangered animals.

Planning ahead
Alongside funding and implementing new zoo exhibits, the Irwins began purchasing land in and around Queensland in order to preserve ecosystems in that part of Australia. On some of this land, they built animal rehabilitation and release facilities. At the time of his death, the media speculated that the Irwins had amassed a property portfolio estimated at AUD$20 million (US$19m, £12.2m, E14.3m).

Before Steve died, he’d put together a 10-year plan, which was his vision for wildlife conservation. Part of that involved making Terri promise she’d never let go of Australia Zoo or the family’s conservation properties if anything happened to him. At the zoo, his plan was to complete the half-finished South-East Asia area and build a new African open-range safari attraction, including the acquisition of some wildlife for both of these sections, which has now been achieved.

Another part of the 10-year plan was to develop an animal attraction in Las Vegas, similar to Australia Zoo. According to Terri, Steve wanted it to be a way of representing Australia in the US “Steve style”. Terri has the land options and the investors to go ahead with the project in Vegas, but is still negotiating with the various entities.

I ask if fulfilling Steve’s legacy and running a world-class attraction sometimes gets too much. “I’m lucky to earn a living doing what I love,” she replies. “I’ve never felt like packing it in and have always honoured Steve’s promise. I have good help – people who are better at this than I am. Plus, I’ve done everything in the business; I’ve cleaned cages, I’ve done the marketing, I know where the cabling is. It’s grown organically, so hasn’t been as daunting as if I’d come straight into this huge business. After Steve died, despite my grief and fear, I was always driven to make things better, not just keep them the same.”

Today, Australia Zoo is 100 acres and employs 400 staff and volunteers. Since she took over sole ownership of Australia Zoo, Terri has completed the South-East Asia section, opened an African safari exhibit and held onto all 80,000 acres of conservation properties. In 2008, she oversaw the building of a new Aus$5m (US$4.8m, £3m, E3.6m) Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, which is the largest of its kind in Australia. The Hospital takes in more than 7,500 animals a year, and along with the conservation properties it funds worldwide, the zoo’s also the sole or majority benefactor of a number of wildlife charity projects globally.

Terri says the hospital alone costs Aus$2.5m (US$2.4m, £1.5m, E1.8m) a year to run. The facility is donation dependant, with Australia Zoo covering the deficit – In 2012, this was to the tune of $1.3m, after $700,000 was raised through public donations. “We’re social entrepreneurs – it’s what we want to do,” says Terri. “Our profit margin isn’t high, but we’re joyful every day.”

Tough conditions
Terri admits that running the business hasn’t always been easy. At the time of Steve’s death, Australia Zoo was growing at 60 per cent per year and getting almost one million visitors annually. After he died, there was an increase in numbers as well wishers came to the zoo, but since then, the business has been hit by the GFC and colossal rains in Queensland and now visitor numbers are more like 600,000 per annum.

To allow for the hit to the zoo, Terri has got rid of anything that isn’t fundamental to the business, including a whale-watching company and a travel agency. She admits the zoo’s growth path has slowed. “I run the company with the priority of animals first, staff second and visitors third. If the animals need something, that comes before anything else. If things get tough, we go on the skinny – we don’t can the project,” she explains. “I may not be able to give the tiger unit in Sumatra as much money for their anti-poaching activities, but I still give something and no one at the project loses their job.”

When Steve Irwin died, the zoo’s main brand ambassador went too. How do they cope without its main attraction? “Steve stood for so much. He always said he didn’t mind if he got remembered or not, just that his message did. We still use his pictures, he’s the embodiment of the ethics of the Irwin family and Australia Zoo.”

Now that Bindi is a tv star in her own right, (her show, Bindi’s Bootcamp, is set at the zoo and airs on Discovery Kids), Australia Zoo also has the income from her filming. This eases the burden financially, but Terri acknowledges that Steve was one of a kind. “No one is ever going to come close to him, so we still use him as a major brand of what we do. We couldn’t ever afford in terms of marketing the exposure he gives us and our projects. Right now, Steve’s in 500 million houses in 42 countries worldwide.”

An issue of scale
Terri believes that despite the benefit of the tv royalties, she faces the same issues as any other wildlife operator. “Zoos have a responsibility to be a caretaker, not just a showcase for animals,” she says. “A zoo can be a life-changing experience if you set it up and package it to the guests properly – if you can feel and smell and connect with an animal, it gets into your heart and touches you and you fall in love with it.”

Terri believes that all too often, visitors see sad animals and sad staff at animal attractions. “If visitors see pacing animals, they won’t come back. If you can’t afford to look after the animals properly in big happy environments, don’t have so many.”

Terri says there’s lots of government aid to help zoological facilities, which means there are many great opportunities for operators to do good things with their facilities. Half the problem, she claims, is the fact that there’s too much red tape in most operations. “At Australia Zoo, there’s no red tape and no bureaucracy. That means, if we get feedback from a visitor to say they want bottle warmers in the baby change rooms for heating formula, we can have them in place by the next day.”

Her advice to operators is to get a good grant writer to secure as much government funding as possible. She also advises tapping into theme park strategies to see where to make more money, such as retail and photography.

“At Australia Zoo, we have an Aussie-made shop. It’s not easy to stock it and it’s not that lucrative, but from a social entrepreneurship point of view, it’s helping artists and indigenous communities and, more importantly, it’s building the ethics of who we are and what we stand for. You need to decide whether you’re about making money or changing lives. If you give, you’ll get back.”

Another success for Terri was the recent birth of southern white rhino calves, Mango and Winston. The zoo’s five-year-old giraffe, Rosie, is also expecting her first baby. This kind of breeding programme was part of Steve’s 10-year plan to help protect African animals in the wild. Its success is testament to the Irwins’ shared passion for conservation and must give Terri comfort that she’s honouring her late husband’s precious legacy.