Bay knitters stitch PJs to save penguins | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

One little blue penguin, a victim of the oil spill off Tauranga, will be making a strong statement about the disaster over the next few days through the woolly PJs he will be wearing.

Embroidered into the lovingly knitted front are the words "Cut Down on Oil Use".

"Yes, some of the knitters have added a few things," Design Spun general manager Brendan Jackson said this morning as the penguin jerseys were packed at the Onekawa factory and sent off to Tauranga.

An unusual shipment, but a vital one for the little birds coming into unwanted contact with life-threatening oil spilling from the stricken container ship Rena.

Mr Jackson was contacted last week by a local woman whose daughter had been involved in the oil response unit.

The recovery crews were coming across oil-smeared penguins who, trying to preen their feathers clean, became more ill.

The Massey University Wildlife Recovery team she was part of cast their minds back to a similar spill in Tasmania some years ago, where locals knitted pure wool jumpers to be put on the little blue penguins during the recovery phase to prevent them getting at their feathers before they could be washed clean.

It worked, so the word went out to the Onekawa company which also operates Skeinz Natural Yarn Store, and which has a "yarn club" of devoted knitters.

Within a week the four to five dozen bright little jumpers (some complete with messages) were all knitted and today the last of them were sent to Tauranga.

"News of what the knitters were up to quickly got around," Mr Jackson said. "It went a bit viral and we've actually got about 100, much more than we need.

"But it's one of those feel-good projects people like to get involved with and we thank them all very much."

He had also taken calls from as far afield as the BBC in England asking what "the penguin PJs" were all about.