And Finally
This is a beautiful story of the affection and devotion that is possible between man and bird.
A South American Magellanic penguin swims 5,000 miles 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.
Joao
cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to
build his strength. He named him Dindim.
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.
And,
just a few months later, Dindim was back. He spotted the fisherman on the beach
one day and followed him home.
For the past five
years, Dindim has spent eight months of the year with Joao and is believed to
spend the rest of the time breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile.
