Penguin swims 5,000 miles every year to reunite with 71-year-old man
When Joao Pereira de Souza, a 71-year-old part time fisherman, happened across a tiny penguin on his local beach just outside Rio de Janeiro Brazil, he thought all was lost.
The penguin was covered in oil, and by all accounts close to death.
But Joao was undeterred and over the course of a week diligently cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers. Joao also fed the bird fish to build strength, naming him Dindim.
After Dindim seemed to improve Joao tried to release him back into sea, but the penguin wouldn’t leave. For 11 months the two lived together, thick as thieves.
“He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,” Joao told Globo TV.
Then suddenly, after a few months away Dindim returned, amazingly spotting Joao on the beach. Dindim now spends around eight months a year with Joao and the remaining time breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile, a distance of 5,000 miles!
"I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me," Joao told Globo TV. "No one is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up."
Video credit: YouTube / Globo TV
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