IT IS nearly 12 years since his untimely death but wildlife warrior Steve Irwin is still constantly in his wife’s mind.

In a rare interview on Sunday Night to air tonight, the mother of two opened up about her ongoing grief.

“Every day it’s difficult, and after 11 years the grief goes from being a rock in your heart to walking beside you,” Irwin said.

“It’s always there, and I never really know when it’s going to hit me. And sometimes it can be the most inopportune time that I feel overwhelmingly emotional but, you know, it’s okay.”

Steve Irwin died at the age of 44 after being pierced in the heart by a stingray while filming a documentary in Queensland.

The couple had two children together — Bindi, 19, and Robert, 14.

“For years I still had Steve’s clothes in the cupboard,” Irwin said, appearing in the interview as part of a broader story on crocodile culling.

“Do I miss him? Constantly. But I think I was so lucky to get my happily ever after. I married this great guy who was a stack of fun and we went on all these adventures, he was very strong-willed, we had these great arguments about things, it was just the most fantastic time of my life. The best part are our two kids. We ended up with two perfect children.”

Irwin is a fierce anti-culling campaigner.

“He (Steve) had such a love and passion for crocodiles,” she said. “That honestly was what first attracted me to him, besides the fact that he was a pretty fine-looking bloke. He spoke of them with such love and compassion … it was impossible not to fall in love with crocs around Steve because he had such an affinity for them and understood them so well.”

She continued of the debate: “The saltwater crocodile is an apex predator, which is integral to the ecosystem. Without apex predators, everything underneath them suffers. Every country has them — lions, tigers, bears. We have crocodiles. Should we lose crocodiles, everything in Australia would change. It is quite sobering what is happening in the world as we lose our apex predators.”