Monday, January 21, 2008

SOS – Knitters needed for bear paws!!

from my craftster.org post:
I just read this on the animals asia website. What a fun great idea for knitters! The moon bear stories are really horrific, so please be careful. If you want to know without reading, they're "farmed" alived for their gallbladder juices, for archaic medicinal purposes. It's truly tragic, but this woman started a rescue group over in China, with centers that take these bears and nurse them back to health. Amazing work.
Carrie
PS I'm not a knitter, or else I'd be making a pattern and churning these out like crazy!

Here's the shipping address:

United States Office
PMB 506
584 Castro Street
San Francisco
CA 94114-2594, U.S.A.
Tel: 1888.420.BEAR
Fax: 1888.420.1610
Email: info@animalsasia.org

SOS – Knitters needed


With the mercury plummeting to well below freezing here in chilly
Chengdu and our first big batch of rescued bears due to arrive in
Vietnam any time now, our vet team has a very special request –
we need warm paw mittens for our bears. When the bears are
anaesthetised and brought in to the surgery for check-ups
it’s important that we keep them warm and comfortable with
a temperature of around 37 degrees C. So if any of you out
there are handy with a pair of knitting needles, you may like
to get creative and help to keep our lovely bears’ paws warm and toasty.

Sorry, we don’t have a knitting pattern, but here’s a picture of
a typical paw print.



Allowing
for some breathing space and the bears’ sizable claws, the length
should be about 30cm (12 inches) and the width at the widest part
ofthe paw pad, 18cm (7 inches). No fingers, thumbs or toes please!
Oh, and the mittens will need to be machine-washable and able to
withstand a clothes dryer without shrinking.

You can send your mittens to our office address in your country
(see the “contact us” webpage).

Thanks in advance and happy clicking!"

http://www.animalsasia.org/blog/index.php?m=01&y=08&entry=entry080117-073909