Alfred Date was a person who couldn’t say no to favors, especially if they were for a good cause. This is how he ended up knitting sweaters to save the world’s smallest blue penguins species.
At 110 years old, Alfred had arrived at a senior care center in Australia. “The two nurses approached me and said, ‘We believe you know how to knit,'” he recounted.
Just as he entered the center, the Penguin Foundation was requesting volunteers to knit sweaters for blue penguins, a cause he immediately joined.
In an interview, Alfred mentioned that he used to be called “silly” for not knowing how to say no, but he also reflected that doing favors is “a good way to move forward in life. You make friends all the time, but you don’t make a fool of yourself.” The nurses provided him with materials, and he started knitting for a colony of penguins on Phillip Island, Victoria, an area where the foundation rescued these animals.
During that period, the small penguins were facing numerous oil spills in the area, resulting in severe toxicity. The sweaters could help them in their recovery.
Faced with the number of penguins affected by oil, the foundation created the program “Knits for Nature”, requesting donations of small sweaters.
Alfred’s story went viral for the first time in 2015 when a local Australian media outlet learned about his work and interviewed him. A year later, he passed away, but his story continues to be viral to this day.
When Alfred passed away in 2016, he was bid farewell with an emotional message: “Mr. Date was a wonderful collaborator of the ‘Knits for Nature’ program and provided us with many woolen sweaters to protect the small penguins of Phillip Island in case of an oil spill.”
Impact of the sweaters on the penguins’ lives
“When small penguins get contaminated with oil, they try to preen and clean the toxic oil from their plumage, and if they ingest it, they can die. It also damages their delicate feathers, exposing their skin to extreme temperatures and leaving them cold, heavy, and unable to swim or hunt for food,” they pointed out on their website from the Penguin Foundation.
Learn about the importance of sweaters for penguins.
The caretakers chose to use a method called “rehabilitation sweaters”. “When oil-covered penguins are rescued and brought into the Phillip Island Wildlife Clinic, they are temporarily fitted with knitted sweaters that act as a barrier to prevent them from touching the oily feathers with their beaks before the rescue staff can wash their bodies,” they explained.
The program managed to collect 200,000 sweaters by 2021 when it was closed due to receiving too many. Some of the garments that were not suitable for the birds, either containing adornments they could ingest or being of the wrong sizes, began to be sold as penguin plush toys to raise funds for the foundation.
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