Saturday, October 29, 2011

penguins with close-knit friends

There was recently an oil spill off the coast of New Zealand and, as usual, the wildlife really suffered. Including penguins ... the oil not only makes their body temperature too cold, but they ingest the toxic oil when they preen themselves.


So, in an effort to help them, a NZ yarn store put out a call for their customers to knit sweaters (or "jumpers", as the Kiwis call them) to protect the penguins.And what a response they received! Word spread and more than enough sweaters poured in to their shop from around the world. What a gesture! So now the oil-soaked penguins will have the warmth they need until they can be painstakingly cleaned of the crude. And after they're clean, they still need to wear the sweaters for a bit until their natural oils re-coat their feathers.


If you're a knitter and would like to help these precious birds, the sweater pattern and mailing address are posted HERE (although they have received enough for now, they're saving all the surplus sweaters for future disasters).

And aren't they just so ADORABLE sporting those little sweaters ?!?!?

Hope you're enjoying the weekend,

1 comment:

Momofboys said...

Oh my word that is absolutely adorable and so helpful to these precious birds! I will pass along this to my knitting friends!!!