Tribute from 9-year-old daughter marks anniversary of croc hunter's death

How would you like it if your parents had named you after a crocodile? Bindi Irwin doesn't seem to mind, as she shows in the commemorative special, My Daddy the Croc Hunter (Animal Planet - 8 p.m.).
Her dad, Steve Irwin, of Crocodile Hunter fame, was killed by a stingray off Australia's Great Barrier Reef one year ago today. His death was a freak accident, according to most wildlife experts - stingrays are considered virtually harmless.
Bindi, 9, explains how she got the name: her mom and dad didn't know if she would be a boy or girl, so they decided on Bindi, the name of the crocodile that was one of his original show-stoppers.
My Daddy the Croc Hunter is a compilation of home videos of Bindi growing up in the Irwin household and being introduced to the critters that made her dad so jazzed.
It's difficult to be reminded, while watching My Daddy the Croc Hunter, that daddy is no longer parading for the camera or around to be a father to his daughter.
Irwin had an undeniable impact on popular culture, but perhaps his greatest influence was on children. It seems only appropriate, then, that he be remembered a year later through a child's eyes.
My Daddy the Croc Hunter is unique. It's both joyful and sad. It's both exquisitely personal - there's home video here that was obviously never intended to be seen by anyone but close family - and yet it's a public portrait of a private person who chose to open his life to the world outside.
It's a closing chapter on one life and an opening chapter on a new life: Bindi Irwin is about to follow in her father's hiking-boot steps with her own wildlife TV series, Bindi the Jungle Girl, which will debut Oct. 2 on Canada's Discovery Kids channel. Life goes on.