How knit penguins save lives
As is known, penguins wear a tailcoat. But little penguins who wear knit sweaters? Some may break out at the sight of ecstatic "Ahhs" and "Ohhhs" because the animals in them look so cute. Others will shake their heads and ask themselves, "How can you only put on these sweaters for the animals? That's animal cruelty!" However, the matter actually has a serious background: the knit sweaters should protect little penguins after an oil spill.
Because in the case of an environmental catastrophe in which oil leaks, the animals are in great danger. Even a small amount of oil the size of a thumb nail can kill a miniature penguin. The animals are dying because the oil is matting the feathers, explain the animal rights activists of the Australian Penguin Foundation. The penguins can no longer ward off the water, which cools their little bodies too much and makes them too heavy to successfully hunt for food. The little penguins finally starve to death. The knit sweaters have several advantages: They prevent the pygmy pines from brushing their plumage, swallowing oil and dying from it. In addition, the overcoat warm the cold. Although the animal rights activists also wash the feathers, but since this removes the protective layer of fat, the pingiunas continue to wear their woolen garments until they can be released again into freedom.
That the knit sweaters are not a joke, but actually help, has been shown several times in the past. For the first time, they were successfully used in 2001 when an oil spill occurred in Australia. At that time all 400 penguins could be saved by the knit sweaters. Also in 2011, the pullovers were used to protect the penguins after a freighter accident in New Zealand. The Penguin Foundation now has a large supply of knit sweaters thanks to many knitters and knitters worldwide - many of them from Germany - and currently needs no more. We keep our fingers crossed that the knit sweaters will not be needed in the near future.
