Humans; Raised By Animals

Children who have been raised isolated from human contact while growing up are known as feral children. These children basically have no idea of any form of human love or even of any human language. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book character, Mowgli, is someone that naturally comes to mind. However, very unlike that storyline in the book, these children are often those who have been rejected by their parents, faced severe abuse or brought up by animals. There are many such reported incidents which definitely sure to amaze you to quite an extent! What follows are some bizarre tales about kids being raised by animals.

Marina Chapman – raised by monkeys

Presently an author living in Bradford, England, Marina Chapman lives a totally normal life. However, she encountered several problems when publishing her autobiography as publishers simply refused to believe her story.

She was apparently kidnapped and then abandoned in the Colombian jungle. A group of capuchin monkeys, known to adopt humans, accepted and took care of her. They taught her to catch birds and rabbits that helped survive in the wild. Later, she was rescued by hunters and sold to a brothel. She had no idea of human languages and somehow managed to escape only to live on the streets and later as a slave for a mafia family. Finally, she ended up making some connections and managed to get to Bradford.

Scientific studies on Marina reveal and point out to the fact that what she claims to have been through is actually true.

Sidi Mohamed – the ostrich boy

At the age of about five or six, Sidi ran away from his family in North Africa. He found an ostrich’s nest with hatching eggs and got along with the parent birds. These birds not only took care of him, but also taught him to run fast. He was later found by ostrich hunters who took him back to his family. He was known to live a normal life from then on. During his time of stay with the ostriches, he was known to eat mostly grass!

Daniel – the goat boy

In 1990, Daniel a goat boy was found in the Andes, Peru. It is believed that he was raised by goats for the last eight years. He survived drinking goat milk, berries and roots of plants.

Daniel developed certain feral characteristics, and one of which being he walked with all of his four limbs. The hands and feet of Daniel had also developed scars, pretty much acting like hooves. He was also able to communicate with goats and could not learn human languages.

Bird boy from Russia

In 2008, the Russian “bird boy” was discovered by care workers. He is known to be able to communicate with birds through chirpings. It was found that his mother treated him as a pet and left him in a virtual aviary, which was full of birds in cages. Galina Volskaya, the person who rescued him said that the boy only responded in chirps when some started talking to him. It is said that the mother didn’t abuse the boy, but just never talked to him and left him to grow up with the birds in the tiny two room apartment. The mother later signed an abdication to release him into care, and he was later transferred to an asylum.

Kamala and Amala – raised by wolves

Kamala and Amala, better known as “the wolf children”, is very well known case of children being raised in the wild. They were discovered in the jungles of Godamuri, India in 1920. One of the girls was aged 3 and the other about 8. They were living with a she-wolf and her pack. Reverend J.A.L. Singh, who found the girls, took them back to his own orphanage and tried to help them get accustomed to new human surroundings. After making some progress, both the girls died.