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Knitting for Koalas and Kangaroos

baby koala 3.jpg

I’m sure many of you saw the devastating bushfires in Australia on the news. It was heart-breaking to see the pictures of so many animals affected by this extreme event, most likely due to the warming climate. With a huge amount of land burned, many animals were left orphaned or without homes. This is where the world’s knitters came to save the day!

 

Young animals, especially marsupials like koalas, kangaroos, possums and wombats need pouches to develop. Without their mothers to nurture them, many animal charities need hand-stitched products to support these vulnerable babies. This is where Australia’s Animal Rescue Craft Guild called out to the general public for help, posting on their Facebook group that handmade pouches and mittens were desperately needed. This group accumulated over 120,000 members in the weeks after that post, and attracted donors across Europe, Asia, and the USA.

 

The mittens have been used to help heal koalas’ burnt paws and the pouches have helped kangaroos and bats in their recovery. The charity partnered with the Rescue Collective, based in Queensland, in order to distribute the handmade donations to independent animal carers across the country. This also answered an overwhelming surge of requests from rescuers all around Australia.

 

With climate change being quite a controversial topic, I think we can all agree that the bushfires in Australia sent shock waves across the world, irrespective of the environmental beliefs of individuals. Not surprisingly, it very much affected Australian opinion, with a 10% rise of Australians being “very concerned” about climate change and 72% of the population agreeing that the January fires should act as a wake-up call for the world. Studies have found that when environmental consequences directly affect people, feelings of distress and anger do not dissipate easily. With such a huge environmental crisis like this, maybe this will stimulate the public engagement that is needed to break through the political standstill on climate change. But one thing’s for sure, the cooperation and compassion demonstrated by humans all around the world to save helpless animals show we have the determination and willpower to make a difference to protect nature. 

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