Boggabri MPS resident helping little penguins

Boggabri is known for being the ‘little town with a big heart’ and contributing to this is a couple of ladies knitting jumpers for little penguins.

Noreen Boehm volunteers at the Boggabri John Prior Multi Purpose Service one day a week, helping the diversional therapist provide activities and visiting those without close family.

Recently MPS resident Peggy Varcoe was looking for something different to do and Noreen suggested that Peggy help her knit some penguin jumpers.

That seemed like an odd suggestion, however, Noreen is also well-known for knitting and crocheting for charity, and the background story is that when little penguins become oiled, they will try to preen and clean the toxic oil from their feathers and ingesting it can kill them.

It also damages their delicate feathers, which exposes their skin to extreme temperature and they are left cold, heavy and unable to swim or hunt for food.

Little penguin rehabilitation jumpers play an important role in saving injured penguins.

When the oiled penguins are rescued and admitted to the Phillip Island Wildlife Clinic knitted jumpers are temporarily placed on the penguins, acting as a barrier from reaching their oily feathers with their beaks, before rescue staff can wash their bodies clean.

The knit program has been running for more than 20 years and generous knitters from across the globe have sent over 200,000 jumpers.

Most of the donated jumpers were suitable for the little penguins.

However, despite the very best efforts some were too big, or small or came adorned with embellishments which, while beautiful would pose a risk to the little penguins, these jumpers are sold on plush penguin toys to raise finds for wildlife conservation on Phillip Island Since 2012, the sale of these jumpers has raised $387,700.

In 2019, Phillip Island Nature Parks opened a new modern and environmentally sustainable Penguin Parae Centre.

This redevelopment allowed the creation of extra habit and homes for over 1400 breeding little penguins.

Again, they asked the knitters for support and now they receive thousands of jumpers which are sorted and stored at the clinic.

They are always grateful to receive the jumpers to sell on the plush penguin toys to raise much needed funds for a variety of projects.

Recently a call went out for more jumpers and that’s when Noreen and Peggy got busy with their knitting needles and started knitting some jumpers.

Noreen then posts their jumpers to the facility in Victoria.