Only a few people know that keeping wild animals as pets is strictly prohibited in Brazil. However, despite this ban, a little penguin, Dindim, swims to Brazil every year to visit his friend whom he met in 2011.
One day, 71-year-old Joao Pereira de Souza, a fisherman, found a dying penguin on the shore. Joao took the penguin home, nursed him back to health, and named him Dindim. After some time, the penguin swam away to an unknown destination…but then he came back the following year! The old man was really surprised and touched to see his little friend again. But what’s even more incredible and touching is that Dindim visits his savior every year.
’’Everyone said that he wouldn’t return anymore, but every year he comes back to see me’’, Joao says.
To visit his savior, the penguin swims about 8,000 km (5,000 miles) every year.
Now, most of the year, Dindim lives with Joao in Brazil, and he spends the rest of the time at home near the coasts of Argentina and Chile.
’’I love him like he’s my own child, and I believe that he loves me back.’’
Biologists say that they’ve never seen anything quite like it. Probably, the penguin thinks that Joao is part of his family.
