We tend to think of wild animals as mean when we encounter them people, including children. However, there have been several stories of children being cared for by animals, with dramatic life-changing and even serious consequences. A feral child is a child raised by animals with little to no previous human socialization. These stories are rare now, but were more common in the past and especially in rural areas, and many documentaries have been made of them. Here are 10 examples of children raised by animals that will blow your mind.
Oxana Malaya
One of the most famous documentaries about wild children was that of Oxana Malaya, the Ukrainian dog girl. She was a feral child raised by dogs after her neglectful, abusive parents abandoned her in a kennel at age 3. Found at age 8 in 1991, she could not speak, only barked and ran on all fours. She is now in her twenties and although she can speak, she is still cognitively impaired. She lives in a mental institution and cares for cows on a nearby farm. Since her rescue, she was interviewed in a British documentary at the turn of the century.
Dina Sanichar
Believe it or not, the Jungle Book story was based on that of a feral child raised by a pack wolves and became known as the Indian Wolf Boy. The phenomenon of a “human animal” or Mowgli syndrome was even inspired by him. Dina Sanichar was rescued from a wolf cave at age six in 1867 and then grew up in the Sekandra Orphanage, where he was thought to be mentally retarded after being observed eating raw meat off the ground and ripping his clothes. He became addicted to tobacco and died in 1895.
Marcos Pantoja
Marcos Pantoja was not so much a feral child as other more serious cases, as he was older when he was left in the wild. In 1953, at the age of 7, his parents abandoned him and he was raised by a pack wolves who protected, sheltered and nourished him. He learned to bark, chirp, screech and… howl to communicate with the wolves as well as other animals. Until the age of 19 he lived in the Sierra Morena, a mountain range in southern Spain. Then the police found him and he tried to run away, but they captured him and he became known as the Wolfman of Sierra Morena and the son of wolves.
They took him to the nearest village, after which a priest took him to the hospital ward of a convent in Madrid, where the nuns gave him a corrective education. After that, he lived in monasteries, hostels and abandoned buildings across the country, doing odd jobs and experiencing robbery and exploitation. Although he had normal intelligence and had no learning disabilities, he lacked the human socialization that older children and teens experience. He was also unworldly and ignorant of technology, such as the radio, which he believed people were trapped in. In the 50 years since he was brought to civilization, he has indicated that he still struggles to adapt. The movie Entrelobos (“Among Wolves”) is based on his story.
Amala and Kamala
Another of the most famous documentaries about wild children is the story of Amala and Kamala, the wolf girls of Midnapore. In 1920, Christian missionary Joseph Singh, who was the head of an orphanage in northern India, saw 2 ghostly-looking girls in suits wolves in the Bengal jungle. Singh hid in a treetop overlooking the wolves’ lair. He and the people saw the wolves and the girls climb out of the den at full moon. The mother wolf defended the girls as if they were her own cubs, and the natives killed her and took the girls to civilization.
Their lack of human socialization showed as they were extremely aggressive, whining and biting everyone. They made no human noises, cried or smiled. Also, their bodies were adapted to being wild children, with sharp teeth, strong jaws, keen sense of smell, improved hearing and sight adapted to the dark, with a flashing light in their eyes. Amala died in 1921 and Kamala died in 1929. The book The Wolf Girls: An Unsolved Mystery From History is about them.
Daniel
A male feral child was found in 1990 aged 12 in Andes, Peru. He had survived about eight years by living with goats, drink their milk and eat berries and roots. He could communicate with goats and walked on all fours, with calluses on his hands and feet, and could not learn human language. He was known as the Andean Goat Boy and was later named Daniel after being examined by a team at Kansas State University.
Syrian Gazelle Boy
In 1960, an anthropologist named Jean-Claude Auger met Nemadi nomads in the Spanish Sahara (Rio de Oro). They told him about a male feral child on a day’s journey. He followed their directions and found a 10-year-old boy living with a herd of gazelles. He galloped with huge leaps up to 13 feet like a gazelle, and it took an army jeep to catch him as he ran at 50 mph and up to 51-55 mph. The fact that he occasionally stood up told Auger that he became a feral child when he was about seven or eight months old, no more than a year. He behaved like a gazelle, his diet was mainly herbivorous and his teeth were just like theirs. Attempts to civilize him were unsuccessful and he escaped. He was found a month later in 1966 and the attempt to recapture him failed.
bello
In 1996, the male wild child Bello, later known as the Nigerian Chimp Boy, was found at the age of two in the Falgore Forest of northern Nigeria. When he was about six months old, he was abandoned by his parents, which was common among the nomadic Fulani population with disabled children. He was found with a family of chimpanzees and walked like a chimpanzee, making chimpanzee noises and clapping his hands over his head. In the dorm he was taken to, he would jump, break and throw things. In the six years that followed, he became much calmer, but still behaved like a chimpanzee. He died in 2005.
Vanya Yudin
Raised next to his mother’s pet birds in an aviary in her apartment until the age of seven, the male wild child who became known as the Russian Bird Boy was rescued in 2008 by Russian rescuers in Volgograd. His mother treated him like a pet, and one of the effects of his lack of human socialization was that he could not talk at all, but could only chirping like a bird. Since then, he has lived in a center for psychological care where professionals are rehabilitating.
Marina Chapman
The story of Marina Chapman begins with her kidnapping at age five and then left in the Colombian jungle, after which a group of capuchins monkeys adopted her and taught her how to catch rabbits and birds with bare hands. Hunters found her after five years and sold her to a brothel, which she ran away from. She lived homeless, became a slave to a mafia family and learned human language. With an opportunity she found through making connections, she went to Bradford, became a nanny, found her future husband and started a family. The book The Girl With No Name is about her story.
John Ssebunya
A little boy was born in a village in Bombo, Uganda. When he was two years old, he witnessed his father kill his mother and ran away to the jungle where he lived with green vervet monkeys. After three years, he was rescued in 1991 by a woman searching for food in the jungle. His monkey family threw sticks and stones as he was dragged along, and he became known as the Ugandan Monkey Boy. The five-year-old boy was taken to a nearby Christian orphanage, where he was found to have hypertrichosis (abnormal growth of body hair), scars and wounds and did not know how to walk on two feet. He struggled but eventually learned to walk, talk and smile.
Children raised by animals is rare, but not impossible. A feral child has a very hard time adjusting to society, if at all. Some children are not completely feral, especially if they are older or have not been with people for a short time, but retain the effects of socialization from wolves and other animals that raise them. Other wild children were lost or abandoned too early to learn human language and socialization. Many wild children’s stories are available as documentaries, such as Oxana Malaya’s, films about several at once, or series such as Raised Wild, which describes a child in each episode.