In 2011, a Brazilian man found a
Magellanic penguin dripping with oil and starving by his home on
an island near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After cleaning him up and feeding
him back to strength, an inseparable friendship was born.
When Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, let the
penguin back into the sea, he thought their paths had strayed for good.
However, to his surprise, the penguin returned to the island a few months later
and followed him back to his home.
Every year since, the penguin spends
eight months of the year on the Brazilian island with his new companion, only
returning to the Patagonian coast in southern Chile and Brazil to breed in
spring. It’s reported by the Wall
Street Journal that this journey
is around 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles).
De Souza, a retired bricklayer, has named
his new pal JinJing.
“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.”
According to the IUCN Red List, the
Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus
magellanicus) is categorized as near threatened species. While it’s
not unheard of for the penguins to migrate up to Brazil, there are few
reports of individuals heading as far north as Rio de Janeiro in normal
circumstances.
Mario Castro, a local fisherman, told the Wall Street Journal: “The funniest thing is, the penguin
might stay here for a week, then it will walk down to the beach and leaves. It
spends 10, 12 or 15 days, then comes back to the same house,”
Speaking to The Independent, biologist Joao Paulo
Krajewski, who interviewed de Souza for Globo TV, said: “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. When he sees him he wags his tail like a
dog and honks with delight.”
It's just unbelievable and at the same time beautiful. I would never thought that a penguin could be so emotional and devoted. Animals are better creatures than we, people, would ever be. ;)
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