Australians with knitting skills are being urged to make mittens for the burnt paws of koalas caught in bush fires that have ravaged the south of the country.
Animal welfare agencies are receiving an influx of koalas with paws too badly burnt to climb in and out of trees.
“The treatment for burns on a koala is very similar to the treatment of burns on a human being,” said Jilea Carney, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “It’s a regime of infection control — applying burns cream, bandages.”
The fund, which is supplying a pattern to give knitting enthusiasts a guideline, said they were needed to cover the dressings applied to koala burns.
Josey Sharrad, the fund’s native wildlife campaigner, said infant