a conundrum

A few days ago I received a fabulous ball of Air, a luxury yarn in Tuscan Red from a company in New Zealand called Zealana. It's a dreamy combination of cashmere, mulberry silk, and brushtail possum down. I've used possum yarn before and it's expensive, soft, warm and light and makes the best hand warmers imaginable.

I immediately started knitting as I watched an old Cary Grant, Irene Dunne screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife -- which I just learned (thank you Wikipedia) was an adaptation of a Tennyson poem called "Enoch Arden" with a similar theme of a wife shipwrecked on an island with a man not her husband, who returns after several years. Who knew.

Sorry, I got diverted. I have one mitt finished and another on the needles, the color is lovely and I'm imagining how they will bloom when washed, and feel on my hands when the weather turns cold and how on early mornings I might prepare tea in the chilly kitchen....then I began to wonder how the possum down is collected.

Now, I'm not a militant environmentalist, although I have hugged a tree or two in my life, recycle regularly, and try to be mindful of the products I buy (fewer leather goods, non-GMO foods, much less meat, free range eggs, etc., etc.), but something about this product prompted me to look into it. It seems that these animals were introduced into New Zealand in the late 1880s and have alarmingly proliferated. There are 4.4 million humans in NZ and 70 million possums who are destroying forests and foliage and settling into people's homes. Conclusion? They are being "culled" -- their down "plucked" and eventually (among other uses) spun into yarn that I bought to make hand warmers, feeling so very ecologically smug and cozy (the latter due to perusing an old edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass).

The beauty of alpaca, wool, cashmere, qiviut (super luxury fiber from the musk ox), is that the animals are combed or sheared and probably live happily since being healthy produces higher quality fibers that can be sold for high prices. The are not killed for their coats.

I'm disturbed by this new knowledge and a bit confused. Is it okay to cull animals if they are destroying ecosystems? I remember back in New England when deer were proliferating and strolled through suburban backyards munching gardens and pulling down branches from fruit trees. Our house was nestled in front of 20 acres of woods (not ours) and our one old apple tree attracted several deer every Fall. We took pictures of them. Hunters were encouraged to get deer-hunting licenses. In areas of the west bears are growing in numbers and due to years of drought conditions in the southwest, they now come down from the mountains drawn to dumpsters and fruit trees. Bears are scarier than deer and are usually shot and killed when found marauding. Every year there are reports of cubs in backyard trees and where there's a cub, a protective mother is nearby. Will I buy this yarn again? I don't know. I have to think this over. It does feel so cozy.

she was in a little dark shop...and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair, knitting...she was working with fourteen pairs [of knitting needles] at once....