Sewing for Wildlife

The raging bushfires that have burned huge swathes of our country's beautiful lands have meant that so many people have lost, or become displaced from, the places they call home. So too, our animals. These fires have destroyed so much habitat, their homes, and our native wildlife need all they help they can get.

A sweet joey kangaroo resting on the grass just outside our holiday unit door.

The loss and suffering of so many of these beautiful creatures is immense and I wanted to do something to help and to support those wonderful wildlife rescuers and carers who will try to nurse injured and frightened animals back to health and release them again if they can.

A possum pouch lining made from the flannelette of old pillowcases.

 A soft and warm place to rest.

On the WIRES website, I found very simple instructions for how to make little liners for possum pouches. These are a soft inner liner that go inside the larger outer pouch that holds small and recovering native animals like young possums, wombats or bandicoots. These liners have to be changed much more regularly than the outer pouch they line and so, from a pair of old and soft flannelette pillowcases, I made a set of them. They are simple to make and anyone who can sew a straight line can make them.

 A set of stripey bat wraps.

My mother-in-law gave me two more flannelette sheets, soft with age and many washes, to make bat wraps with. Rhonda, on her Down-to-Earth blog, which many of you will be familiar with, wrote about the work her nephew does as a wildlife rescuer in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. He needed more joey slings and bat wraps to transport and care for animals caught up in these terrible bushfires so I sewed some bat wraps from stripey strips of my mother-in-law's gifted sheets. The little bats' wings are protected as the fabric is wrapped, sausage-roll style, around them. The bat wrap pattern that Rhonda linked to, with photos of little bats all wrapped up in them, is available here. They are simple to make and anyone who can sew a straight line can make them.

A little bundle of home sewing for wildlife.

This sewing is one small thing I can do in the face of a big crisis but there are many, many people right around our beautiful country, and the world too, who are doing what it is they can do to help. Just one example is this inspiring news story of crafters in the far north joining a sewing bee to sew for wildlife affected by the bushfires. I think that's a wonderful example of community and compassion. 

A protective Bush Stone-Curlew with her little chicks 

in the garden of our holiday unit home.

My little set of pouch liners and bat wraps doesn't look a lot on its own but it is something and, when joined together with everyone else's somethings, that then becomes a lot! And our animals need a lot of help right now.

Meg