Penguin Spends 8 Months a Year Vacationing in Brazil with Human "Mate"

August 28, 2019 7:57 AM

Joao Pereira de Souzaspotted a starving Magellanic penguin drenched in oil on the beach near his house. "He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared," But a few months later, Dindim returned and found Pereira de Souza. And here's a video.
posted by If only I had a penguin... (15 comments total)

If only I had a penguin...


wait ....
posted by Pendragon at 8:19 AM on August 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

I mean, obviously this isn't ideal for the penguin, but it seems like it's an accident of the man caring for it when it was sick and injured, so the alternative was worse. And now the nice man has a penguin! And who doesn't want a penguin, honestly?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:27 AM on August 28, 2019 [13 favorites]

Short and slick and young and lovely
The 'guin from Ipanema goes waddling
And when it passes, each one it passes
Goes "a-a-a-h"…
When it waddles it's like a samba
When it waddles, it's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when it passes, each one it passes
Goes "a-a-a-h"
Oh, but I watch it so sadly
How can I tell it I love it
Yes, I would give my heart gladly
But each day as it walks to the sea
It looks straight ahead, not at me
Short and slick and young and lovely
The 'guin from Ipanema goes waddling
And when it passes, I smile, but it
Doesn't see. It just doesn't see
No, it just doesn't
posted by chavenet at 9:03 AM on August 28, 2019 [20 favorites]

that video is so wholesome and heartwarming. thank you for sharing :D
posted by the thought-fox at 9:24 AM on August 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

"I think he goes to Patagonia, I would like to too
if I could I would visit the place of the penguins."

I would honk with delight if I met this man too. Thanks for posting.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:33 AM on August 28, 2019 [17 favorites]

A wonderful penguin tale.
posted by Oyéah at 12:32 PM on August 28, 2019

Is he absolutely sure it's the same penguin?
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:28 PM on August 28, 2019

Of course it's the same penguin....it's right there in black and white......
posted by mightshould at 1:37 PM on August 28, 2019 [14 favorites]

Joao Pereira de Souzaspotted

I know this is just a minor typo, but I am loving the sound of that name. Mr Souzaspotted would be a perfect character in a children's book (perhaps about a lonely penguin).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:45 PM on August 28, 2019

Aw. This is a bit like the real-life tale in The Penguin Lessons, a memoir by a British guy who was teaching in a school in Argentina in the 1970s and rescued a magellanic from an oil-covered beach in Uruguay. He took it away to clean it in the bath of the apartment he was staying in, and when he tried to return it to the sea, it refused to leave him. He ended up smuggling it back into Argentina and giving it a home at the school. There remains just a tiny bit of video footage of Juan Salvador the penguin doing his laps in the school swimming pool.
posted by penguin pie at 6:41 AM on August 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

So the original post video was wonderful and sweet, and now the last comment about a loyal penguin friend has me really wondering, why aren't penguins kept as pets? They seem pretty open to it, but maybe that's only if you save their lives?

Anyway, very sweet post. Loving "post your animal!"
posted by hiker U. at 7:25 AM on August 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

why aren't penguins kept as pets?

They're kind of smelly - their rookeries have a pretty strong fishy odour. And the magellanics like to screech at dawn and dusk. And their beaks are pretty sharp - if they don't warm to you, they can bite your fingers down to the bone if they want to. And they need space to swim. And the magellanics like to live in burrows, which tend to have fleas. Oh, and their poo is practically rocket-powered, it jets out of their butts at surprising velocity.
posted by penguin pie at 9:13 AM on August 29, 2019 [7 favorites]

Thanks for that extra info! Most of those - bitey, smelly, loud - seem similar to other birds and more exotic animals kept as pets, but rocket-powered bird poo (and needing very specific beachfront property, but really the poo) does kind of nudge it over into no, no, no territory. Yikes!

But mostly, it seems that Jinjing and Juan Salvador the penguin are the exceptions - most penguins probably prefer to hang out in big social (penguin) groups rather than just have one friend.
posted by hiker U. at 1:07 PM on August 29, 2019

"They seem pretty open to it, but maybe that's only if you save their lives?"

Right, unless it subsequently saves your life, it's honor-bound to spend eight months of the year living with you.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:53 PM on August 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

Right, unless it subsequently saves your life,

If a penguin saves YOUR life, you're honour-bound to move to the Patagonia 4 months a year and live with it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:27 PM on August 29, 2019 [3 favorites]