A retired bricklayer and part time fisherman, 71-year-old Joao Pereira de Souza from an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, discovered a tiny penguin languishing on the rocks in 2011.

The helpless creature was starving and covered in oil but de Souza took him in and nursed him back to health, naming the South American Magellanic penguin Dindim.

And, the flightless bird is believed to swim around 5,000 miles every time he returns.

“I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,” de Souza told Globo TV.

“No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up.” (source)

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6McB0jhPWqs]Patagonian Penguin Finds Second Home in Brazil

Wall Street Journal