Winnipeg crafters sending handmade joey pouches, nests to animals hurt by Australia fires

The donation bin at an Osborne Street game store is starting to fill up with handcrafted items that will soon be shipped halfway across the globe to help koalas, kangaroos and other wildlife that have been injured and lost their homes in the wildfires burning across Australia.

Jonas Pagé, a supervisor at GameKnight Games and Cool Stuff at 519 Osborne St., said one of his co-workers involved with the Winnipeg Animal Rescue Craft Group asked the staff last week if they could use the shop as a drop-off location for the donation drive.

"I, personally, was excited. I'm pretty sure the other staff were glad this was happening, as well," Pagé said.

"It can be frustrating to hear about things that are happening on the other side of the world ... and it can be difficult to know how to help."

Pagé said the store has already gathered a handful of colourful donated joey pouches since it put out the call for donations a week ago. They are used to hold baby kangaroos, called joeys, and other marsupials like a mother's pouch.

"It's a really scary situation over there right now, and so I'm glad that there are people who are finding ways to help out," said Pagé. "It's important to find ways to help, especially with something as big as this that's eventually, with climate change, likely to become even more global and relevant."

Carmen Asu, who is helping organize the craft group's efforts, said she was inspired to get involved after learning her rescue dog, Suvi — who she was initially told was a German Shepard — is actually an Australian Kelpie.

"I thought she was kind of small for that, but I didn't know," Asu told CBC Weekend Morning Show host Nadia Kidwai.  "So I Google 'Australian Kelpie,' and there she was ... she acts like a Kelpie. She's smart, she's agile, she's athletic."

Asu said she started getting in touch with other Kelpie lovers, and they decided they wanted to find a way to help the animals in Australia who were suffering because of the wildfires. Asu said she started looking into it, and realized the wildlife groups aren't only looking for financial help.

"They, of course, are asking for money, because they need veterinarian supplies and all of that kind of stuff," she said. "But then what they started asking for was for crafters to make things that would sort of replicate what these animals have lost in their habitat and also to help in their healing."

On Sunday, she got a group of almost two dozen animal lovers together from across Winnipeg and the Interlake region to knit and crochet joey pouches, bird nests and wraps to send to wildlife rescue efforts in Australia.

Asu said she encourages other crafters to get involved and lend their skills to the cause — and she hopes people who don't share her hobby will help by donating money or materials to help them get more pouches, mitts, nests and more to animals in need.

The group is co-ordinating with the Australia-based Animal Rescue Craft Guild to get the items where they're needed most, Asu said.