Continuing my campaign to strengthen ties between penguins and the LGBT community, I’ll pass along this cry for help from the aforementioned fairy penguins of Queensland. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, penguins caught in oil spills lose the natural insulation of their feathers. The Phillip Island Nature Park, home of 60,000 fairy penguins, therefore put out a call for penguin sweaters to keep affected birds warm and dry. (Thanks to Blogging Baby for the link.) This is the same park that decided to call the fairy penguins “little penguins” for fear of offending the gay community (which in fact seems rather bemused by the act).
Apparently, most of the sweaters are knit by “little old ladies” who “continually push the fashion envelope with matching bride and groom outfits, AFL teams, and, from one elderly English woman, ‘the whole Manchester United soccer team.'”
This sounds like the perfect opportunity for GLBT knitters to step in. Isn’t the whole fashion thing gay people’s natural domain? (Well, for gay men, at least. Maybe the dykes could sew them some little flannel shirts. —That’s a joke, people; I know there are lots of lesbian knitters out there.) We could also make sure to create some groom-and-groom or bride-and-bride outfits for same-sex penguin pairs.
Here are knitting instructions and a mailing address, if you’re interested in making sweaters for our feathered friends.
HI! I think that this is an awesome idea! I’ll get started right away on a lil rainbow sweater for our penguin friends!!