See…the world isn’t such a bad place after all.

A yarn store in New Zealand made an unusual request that seemed to pull at the heart-strings of the entire world…They asked people to sew knit sweaters for penguins affected by the country’s oil spill, and have now hit a ‘critical mass’ of jumpers.

The “penguin jumpers” are intended to keep the birds warm until they are well enough to be scrubbed down and to prevent them from consuming oil on their feathers while preening.

The yarn store is called Skeinz and is located in Napier, New Zealand. They posted the request along with instructions and patterns on their website and have already received a “deluge” of jumpers.

As you may be aware the oil spill & potential disastrous effects to wildlife & environment off the coast of Tauranga is frightening.  A small number of little blue penguins have already been caught in the oil spilled to date with growing fears that more will be effected. Skeinz has been asked to help with the penguin relief by knitting small Penguin PJ’s to help protect the birds & prevent them from preening their feather & ingesting the toxic oil.

More than 1,000 sea birds have already died as a result of the spill, including birds from the country’s native blue penguin population.

Oil can be extremely harmful to penguins, whose feathers are very different from other birds. They have very dense and tiny feathers of different lengths that stick onto them like Velcro, creating a waterproof pseudo-wetsuit.

I don’t care if they do take my “man card” away from me…Really, this is just oozing cuteness.

[Cheers msnbc]

After reviewing more than 40,000 entries the international judging panel of esteemed wildlife and nature photographers have awarded the coveted title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year to Spanish photographer Daniel Beltrá.

His striking image, Still life in oil (above), of eight brown pelicans rescued from an oil spill, not only demonstrates technical perfection, but also evokes a strong environmental statement says Mark Carwardine, the Chair of the judging panel.

The cute little critter above with the massive lugs was snapped by Spanish photographer Xavier Ortega while asleep in its mother’s arms in the forests of Tanzania, earning a Highly Commended prize in the 2011 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer Of The Year contest.

UK photographer Steve Mills, of Whitby, North Yorks, won the Behaviour: Birds category with a dramatic shot of a merlin grabbing a snipe in a flurry of snow last winter.

Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife supported by ARKive - Runner up Tiny warm-up - By Cyril Ruoso (France)

Italian Marco Colombo came across this female grass snake as she lay beside a beautiful stream in Lombardy

Underwater World - Runner up - Salmon swipe by Paul Souders (USA)

British photographer David Fettes snapped this heavyweight bather one evening at the water's edge at Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe

Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year - 10 years and under winner - by Hui Yu Kim (Malaysia)

Marc McCormack (Australia) and Kah Kit Yoong (Australia)

[Cheers wildlifeextra]