I saw this charity listed on the Red Heart Yarn website and thought it was another good one to list here for those yarn-crafting animal lover out there:

Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation have made it their mission to rescue and rehabilitate bears used for medical research purposes. Rescued bears immediately undergo surgery to assess and treat any damage. Like humans, the bears lose heat through their extremities during surgery, and the organization has requested huge thumb-less mittens to help keep the animals warm during surgery and recovery.

This site links over to a web site called Twisted, which is a shop located in Portland, Oregon (and where the bear image also came from). The shop has knitting instructions for the bear mittens that you can download for free, and it also has information on where to send them when finished. For those who crochet, you could probably make something similar by making a very long tube of sorts. According to the web site, the “Finished mittens are about 7″ wide (14″ circumference) with a 12″ foot and 6″ cuff.”

It’s just heart-wrenching to think about these wonderful animals being tortured for and by humans. It’s hard to believe we live in the 21st century when you learn about idiotic stuff like this!

If anyone know of a crochet pattern that would work for this, please provide a link in the comments section.