71-year-old Joao Pereira de Souza, a retiree and part-time fisherman found Dimdim the penguin covered in oil lying on the beach and almost dead. Joao took him home and nursed him back to health. After his recovery, Dimdim didn’t want to leave the man and when he finally did, he came back the next year to pay him a visit. And Dimdim has continued to see Joao every year since, swimming about 8,000 kilometers to do it. That’s my friends, is a real friendship and loyalty.
“Everyone said he wouldn’t return but he has been coming back to visit me for the past four years”
71-year-old Joao found this penguin covered in oil and close to death in 2011
“He stayed with me for 11 months and then…he disappeared
But Dindim kept coming back every year, swimming 8,000km to do so
“I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me. When he sees him he wags his tail like a dog and honks with delight”
“No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do”
“I have never seen anything like this before. I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well” – said Biologist Professor Krajewski
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