Films like The Jungle Book make it seem like feral kids growing among animals look fun, but the truth is that those kids were left tragically scarred by their ordeal.
There have been many kids who have been left to fend for themselves. These children survived by relying on animals. They adopted the characteristics, diet, and behavior of the animal.
And when rescued, it’s almost against their will.
Here is a group of children surviving the impossible without training as they were left on their own.
Living With Monkeys Was The Easiest Part Of Marina Chapman’s Life
Marina Chapman was taken from her rural Colombian home in 1959 and driven into the jungle where she was abandoned. She wept and wandered for hours, before discovering a group of what are thought to be capuchin monkeys.
Chapman followed them for days, learning to scavenge and survive thanks to the monkeys. One of the elder members of the family even helped save her life when she got a foodborne illness.
Naturally, Chapman began to miss human contact. But the first people she ended up with sold her to a brothel. It took years for her to escape into the city streets, working as a domestic servant in homes.
These days, Chapman has an extensive family of her own, and was able put the horrors of her life behind her. She says she owes her life to the little family of monkeys who kept her alive.
Oxana Malaya Still Has More In Common With Animals
Ukrainian Oxana Malaya was just 3 when she was left outside in a snowstorm by her alcoholic parents in 1986.
Somehow, she walked into a nearby hovel where a pack of dogs took her in.
Her parents never went back for her, and so she was raised by the dogs for the next five years, until a neighbor reported the discovery to authorities.
Nowadays, the 33-year-old works in a farm with cows located at the mental facility where she resides.
Oxana has become more comfortable with people, telling jokes and chatting with others, but she reportedly still favors the company of animals.
A Feral Girl In India Was Raised By Monkeys
In 2017, Indian authorities discovered a girl who couldn’t speak or behave like humans. She lived with a troop of monkeys. She was spotted by an inspector at the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, and was referred to as the Mowgli girl after the main character from the Jungle Book.
When he approached her, she was unable to understand or speak and “seemed comfortable with the apes,” according to an Indian newspaper. The girl, who also walked like a monkey, appeared to be around 8 when she was discovered, and was scared of other people.
Authorities are unsure where she’s from, and how long she’s been living with the monkeys.
John Ssebunya Survived A Civil War In A Ugandan Jungle Thanks To Some Monkeys
Uganda was in the middle of a violent civil war in the 80s, where John Ssebunya was just a child of 2. One evening, in a fit of rage, John’s father killed his mother, causing the terrified toddler to run into the jungle. He stayed in the jungle for the next year, surviving with a group of monkeys.
Ssebunya was approached by a family of monkeys just after a few days, and they offered him roots, nuts, sweet potatoes, and cassava. He even behaved somewhat like monkeys, but John survived the ordeal and was raised by a new family. He’s happy now but John says he feels fortunate to have been found by the group of monkeys who became his short-lived family.
“I am grateful, yes, I am,” he says. “Because… not because of love from them, from the monkeys. But because what they did made it possible for me to be loved by other people, by humans.”
Ng Chhaidy Was Missing For Nearly 40 Years
In 1974, Ng Chhaidy and her cousin Beirakhu wandered out of their Indian village and into the jungle. Beirakhu was found later, telling tales of a mysterious woman in the woods who helped the kids survive. A search was mounted, but neither the woman nor Chhaidy was found.
In 2012, 38 years later, Chhaidy was found under the care of a woman living in Myanmar. She was found naked in a cemetery four years earlier so the woman took her in.
When Chhaidy was reunited with her mother, she was happy but her personality was childlike. She was still able to help her mother around while getting to play with the village kids.
The Study Of Victor, The Wild Boy Of Aveyron, Impacted The Future Of Linguistics
12-year-old Victor was found in the wilderness of France in 1797. He was caught twice over the next year, but the boy escaped both times. In 1800, the 15-year-old came out from the woods and the mute teenager was brought to a facility for deaf people. He was taken into the care of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who began to work with Victor.
Unfortunately, the boy proved almost incapable of learning to speak, only ever learning two words. Itard’s studies were the first indication that the brain had a natural cutoff where fundamentals of language had to be imprinted.
A monk even took a naked Victor out in the snow for reasons of scientific inquiry, and though it was questionable, Victor loved it, running and jumping happily.
Sujit Kumar Was Locked in a Chicken Coop for Four Years
In 1977, 6-year-old Sujit Kumar’s mother committed suicide, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, his father was murdered. He was left with his grandfather, who locked the boy in a chicken coop for four years. When Sujit was found, he was sent to an asylum. They tied the boy to the bed for the next 20 years.
Philanthropist Elizabeth Clayton found him in Fiji in 2004, and she says that when she first encountered the boy, “he pecked at his food and would crouch down as if roosting. His fingers turn inward from scratching around in the dirt, he communicates by making a rapid clicking noise with his tongue and he seems detached from much that goes on around him.”
Today, Kumar can stand upright and goes to school, but the damage from previous abuse remains in his life.
Ivan Mishukov Escaped Rescue Three Times To Be With His Pack
The mid-1990s in Russia was a pretty bleak time as they grappled with turbulent political instability and a crippling economic depression. One of the victims of these generalized terms was Ivan Mishukov. In 1996, four-year-old Ivan ran away from his alcoholic father. He took refuge in the city streets. He was an avid animal lover, and he spent days begging for food on the Moscow streets before sharing his food with a pack of local dogs.
The pack adopted him, helping Ivan stave off the crushing Moscow winter, which can go ten degrees below zero. For two years, the boy lived with his pack, thriving on the city’s streets. When authorities would come for him, the pack would drive them away.
They bribed the dogs with steak to rescue young Ivan, and since the first four years of his life was with humans, he was able to return to society.
Though He Never Left The City, One Russian Child Can Only Communicate With Birds
Vanya Yudin, a seven-year-old Russian boy wasn’t abandoned by his 31-year-old mother, but before he was discovered in 2008, Vanya was raised almost like a bird. According to Russian newspaper Pravda, his mother was infatuated with birds. She had a large collection of domestic birds and would even feed wild birds.
As Vanya grew, she wouldn’t speak to him or let him out of the apartment, treating her son instead like one of her birds. When Vanya was found by authorities at age seven, he could only communicate in bird chirps.
Vanya was taken from his mother and sent to live in a psychological care facility.
The Palate Cleanser: One Argentinian Infant Was Kept Alive by Cats for Several Days
Here’s a sweeter story from 2008:
A one-year-old from Argentina was found in a gutter, nurtured by a pack of eight feral cats. According to the boy’s homeless father, the child got lost while he was looking for cardboard to sell for money.
The child went missing during the coldest point of the year, so the father had little hope for his son’s survival. Until cats found the child.
The next several days had the cats bringing the boy food. They slept on and around him to keep him warm, and even protected him from the dangers around them. Police found the boy in near perfect health, while the cats being cats, were irritated about giving him up.
Learn more about each child here.
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