Dindim the Penguin and the Brazilian Man Who Rescued Him

Dindim is a Magellanic penguin who, for several years in the 2010s, kept coming back to the same small beach in Brazil to visit João Pereira de Souza, the retired bricklayer who had cleaned him of oil and nursed him back to health in 2011. The story is real and was documented by a Brazilian biologist, although one popular detail, that Dindim swam about 5,000 miles (8,000 km) a year to see him, was never measured and should be treated as a guess.

Here is what is known about the rescue, the yearly visits, what scientists said about the bird's behaviour, and what later reports say happened next.

The rescue on Ilha Grande

In May 2011, João Pereira de Souza found a small penguin on the shore near his home in Provetá, a fishing village on Ilha Grande, an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The bird was coated in oil and too weak to move, a fate that strikes many Magellanic penguins when they swim north in the southern winter and run into fuel and oil spills along the South American coast.

Pereira de Souza spent days washing the oil from the penguin's feathers and feeding it fish until it regained its strength. He called it Dindim. When the bird seemed healthy he tried to return it to the sea, but it kept walking back to his house. According to his account to Brazilian television, the penguin lived around the family's backyard for months and left only after moulting into a fresh coat of feathers.

Why the penguin kept coming back

The surprise came the following year, when a penguin walked up the same beach and went straight to the same man. It became a pattern. Dindim would reportedly arrive around June, stay for several months and leave around February. Scientists later fitted him with an identification tag, which confirmed that the visitor really was the same bird each time.

João Paulo Krajewski, a biologist who works with the Brazilian broadcaster Globo, filmed the pair and brought the story to a wide audience. He linked the behaviour to something penguins are known for: loyalty to a partner and to a nesting place. Magellanic penguins usually reunite with the same mate each season and return to the same burrow, and they recognise each other by their calls. In Krajewski's view, Dindim had come to treat this one beach and this one man as his place.

He told The Independent in 2016: "I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well." He also noted that the bird let no one else handle him and would peck strangers who tried.

How far did Dindim really swim?

The headline claim that Dindim swam about 5,000 miles every year came from an assumption: that he spent the rest of the year with breeding colonies in Patagonia, in southern Argentina and Chile, and then travelled north to Brazil and back. That would make sense for a typical Magellanic penguin, but nobody tracked Dindim's route.

Krajewski was candid about this to CNN: "We absolutely don't know where Dindim goes and this remains a mystery." He also observed that the penguin seemed to stay on the island during the months when most members of his species are busy breeding further south. So the distance could have been much shorter, or very different, from the figure that went viral. The friendship is documented; the mileage is not.

About Magellanic penguins

Magellanic penguins stand roughly 61 to 76 cm tall and weigh about 2.7 to 6.5 kg. They breed along the coasts of Patagonia and the Falkland Islands, arriving at their colonies around September and raising two chicks a season. After breeding, many swim north to feed in the waters off Brazil and Uruguay during the southern winter, sometimes reaching as far as Espírito Santo.

That northern journey is where many of them get into trouble. Oil pollution kills thousands of adults and juveniles each year off Argentina, and in some years hundreds of penguins have washed up dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. The species is listed by the IUCN as Least Concern, but its population is falling, and shifting fish stocks force some birds to travel further for food.

Seen in that context, Dindim was one of the lucky ones: an oiled bird that happened to be found by someone willing and able to clean him.

What happened next

The story drew worldwide attention in 2016, with coverage from the Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Independent and many others. Pereira de Souza spoke about the bird with obvious affection. Quoted in the international coverage, he said: "I love the penguin like it's my own child and I believe the penguin loves me."

Later reports say Dindim stopped appearing after 2018. In December 2022 a Magellanic penguin turned up again at Provetá beach and behaved in some familiar ways, but it was not tagged and it remains unclear whether it was Dindim. Wild Magellanic penguins can live up to about 25 years, so a return would not be impossible, but it has not been confirmed.

Video and photographs: The Wall Street Journal.

If you find an oiled or stranded penguin

Dindim's story is moving, but it also tempts people to try rescues on their own. A few practical points:

Call the experts first. In Brazil and most coastal countries there are wildlife rescue centres, environmental police or veterinary teams trained to clean oiled birds. Washing oil off feathers without the right detergents and drying can make things worse.
Keep your distance and keep dogs away. Stressed seabirds can bite hard, and a tired penguin on a beach may simply be resting.
Do not feed it random food. Bread or raw meat can harm a seabird. Rescue teams know the right diet and rehydration.
Remember that Dindim was never a pet. Krajewski stressed that the bird was always free to go, and the yard he slept in opened onto the beach. Keeping wild penguins at home is illegal in many countries and usually harmful to the bird.

What makes this story worth remembering is not a record-breaking swim but a simple act of care, and the unexpected way a wild animal seemed to answer it.

Sources: CNN, 27 September 2016; The Independent, 2016; The Wall Street Journal video; AOL: Why Dindim the Penguin Kept Returning; Wikipedia: Magellanic penguin. Previously shared via The Mind Unleashed.

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