[Watch] This Penguin Swims 8000 Kms Every Year For Reunion With The Man Who Saved His Life

Source: Wall Street Journal | metro.co.uk | Image Courtesy: metro.co.uk

A Magellanic penguin that migrates from Patagonia and a retired bricklayer in a Brazilian fishing village have struck up an unusual friendship.

It’s the story of a South American Magellanic penguin who swims 8000 kms each year to be reunited with the man who saved his life.

Retired bricklayer and part time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, who lives in an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, found the tiny penguin, covered in oil and close to death, lying on rocks on his local beach in 2011.

He named him Dindim. Joao cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to build his strength.

After a week, he tried to release the penguin back into the sea. But, the bird wouldn’t leave. ‘He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,’ Joao recalls.

Image Courtesy: examiner

‘I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,’ Joao told Globo TV. ‘No one else 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.

‘Everyone said he wouldn’t return but he has been coming back to visit me for the past four years. He arrives in June and leaves to go home in February and every year he becomes more affectionate as he appears even happier to see me.’

And the world seems a kinder place again.