This is a heartwarming tale about a South American Magellanic penguin named Dindim who swims 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) each year to be reunited with the person who saved him eight years ago. Dindim’s journey begins in the Antarctic Ocean and ends in Argentina.
A fisherman named Joao Pereira de Souza, who is 71 years old and lives in a village on an island in Brazil, discovered a baby penguin that was covered in oil and was very close to passing away in the year 2011. Joao removed the oil from the feathers of the penguin, nursed him back to health, and gave him the name Dindim.
After a period of adjustment, Dindim demonstrated that he was prepared to interact with the outside world; consequently, Joao made the decision to return him to the ocean. On the other hand, the penguin was reluctant to leave. According to Joao, “He stayed with me for 11 months, and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he vanished.” When he did it, everyone predicted that he would never come back.
Dindim astonishes everyone by coming back to see the fisherman after only a few short months have passed. The couple got back together after a long separation, and this has been happening on an annual basis ever since. After he leaves, nobody really knows where he goes, but some people have a theory that he spends the rest of his time breeding off the coasts of Argentina and Chile. The one thing that is certain, however, is that he travels for a year and then visits Joao the following year.
“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.”
“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.”
Watch the video below.
