Penguin Travels 5,000 Miles Each Year To Visit Brazilian Rescuer [Video]

Every year, a South American Magellanic penguin named Dindim travels 5,000 miles to visit his human best friend and rescuer in Brazil. Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, found the tiny, oil-covered and starving penguin wasting away on rocks in 2011. Mr. de Souza, a retired bricklayer and part-time fisherman, rescued the helpless young penguin, cleaned him up, and nursed him back to health.

It was de Souza, who lives in a small island village near Rio de Janeiro, who named the penguin Dindim. At the time, he never could have known that by rescuing the penguin, he was gaining a friend for life.

After nursing the little penguin back to health with a daily diet of love and fish, de Souza ultimately released him back into the wild to be with his own kind and do penguin things.

To de Souza’s surprise, the penguin didn’t leave. He stayed for about 11 months, just long enough to grow a new coat of feathers. Then, one day, Dindim was just gone. De Souza’s friends told him to never expect to see “his” rescued penguin again. But they didn’t know how much affection the pair had developed, and the next season (and each thereafter), the little penguin showed back up at his adopted home.

While he goes off on his own to live among penguin-kind in order to breed, the penguin comes back every year to stay with de Souza for months at a time. In fact, Dindim the penguin spends far more time with his human family-of-one than he does with his penguin family, who he visits for four months per year in order to breed.

He spends the rest of his time living with his human “dad.” Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEFCz5Q7c0M

Every time Dindim comes back to de Souza’s home, it’s estimated that the penguin travels around 5,000 miles to make it happen. So why does the penguin use so much time and effort to return again and again to his human rescuer? De Souza thinks he knows why. In an interview with Globo TV, he said that he loves the little penguin like it’s “my own child,” and he believes that Dindim loves him in return.

As much love as the penguin has for his rescuer, that love doesn’t seem to extend to other humans. While he reportedly lets de Souza hold him, give him showers, and feed him, the penguin pecks at other humans who try to touch him.

When it comes to his rescuer, though, he’ll even lay on his lap.

De Souza has come to expect to see his penguin friend show up at his home sometime in June. Dindim stays until sometime in February, when he takes off to return to his penguin family in order to breed.

“Every year the penguin becomes more affectionate as he appears even happier to see me.”

During the interview with Globo TV, de Souza met with and spoke to Joao Paulo Krajewski, a biologist. According to the biologist, he had “never seen anything like” the relationship forged between Dindim the penguin and his human buddy. Krajewski went on to say that in his opinion, the penguin sees his rescuer as part of his family, perhaps even believing that de Souza is a penguin himself.

“When he sees him he wags his tail like a dog and honks with delight.”

Another expert who looked into the human/penguin relationship concurs, saying that it definitely looks like Dindim sees de Souza as another penguin. As such, he interacts with his human rescuer in the same way he would his penguin family members.

This loyal penguin travels 5,000 miles a year to visit with the man who saved his life ? https://t.co/zDKAc26w2R pic.twitter.com/IDXZpDe1Ap

— UPROXX (@UPROXX) March 9, 2016

While Dindim the penguin just recently left, beginning the 5,000-mile trip to return to his feathered penguin family, he’s expected back in June. Presumably, he’ll show up once more, just like he has for the last four years. In the interim, his rescuer and the world can ponder the wondrous relationship that blossomed from on act of kindness and humanity. As a result, of the choice to save the bird rather than turn his back, Mr. de Souza became family to a little penguin who travels 5,000 each year just to come “home” to his person.

[Image via Shutterstock]