And this has got to be one of the cutest stories of human animal bonds ever. Don’t go looking for a penguin in your local rivers but if you do find one, maybe your tale will ends as sweetly as that of ‘carioca’ Joao Pereira de Souza.
The 71-year old retired bricklayer and occasional fisherman discovered the bird covered in oil and close to death on a beach near his island village outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2011.
He cleaned Dindim's feathers and fed him daily until he was healthy enough to return to the wild. But that wasn’t Dindim’s plan, who simply refused to leave. In a TV interview with Globo, the Brazilian native told the story of how the bird spends up to eight months with the man and the remainder of the time most likely in the cooler waters of Chile and Argentina, where Dindim is probably doing the animal thing and breeding. Patagonia is the most likely places where the penguin returns to.
It’s not entirely uncommon for penguins to end up in Rio’s warm waters, where a northbound current drops them off on the warm beaches.
"I love the penguin like it's my own child and I believe the penguin loves me," Mr de Souza says.
This relationship is even surprising professional biologists. Biologist Professor Krajewski, who interviewed Mr de Souza, said he had never encountered a relationship as unique. "I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well," he told The Independent. "When he sees him he wags his tail like a dog and honks with delight. He’s even protective of his human counterpart and reportedly doesn’t let other animals come close to the elderly man.
If this video doesn’t melt your heart, then we don’t know what will.
Opini